Radio is aimed at the 30-year-old market, so you have to have great music and appeal to get that age group. And you need a record company to believe in you. It's like a bit of the perfect storm.

You don't need a record company to turn you into anything.

I'm developing a record company. I'm learning how to supervise music on a film.

And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.

The tastes of country music fans are not limited to the narrow range defined by consultants and programmers and record company moguls.

Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.