I don't sing country music because I'm not capable of singing other kinds of music; I sing it because I think it's the most beautiful kind of music there is.
So you do shorter versions of the hits, or you take out a long guitar solo or things like that to make time for the hits and new music as well. But I don't think any of us ever get to do as much new music as we would like to.
And for the past 10 years I've been in a real commercial setting where people are all about numbers, they're all about that bottom line. So it's nice to step out of that and hang out with a bunch of people who play music just because they love it, as you can imagine.
And to me, I had come out of Texas, and during that time was when I realized that a lot of people in Nashville, their idea of what country music was was not the same as mine.
But I just love that music scene so much, and I enjoy really being around those artists and watching them even more than I do performing, because they are a whole group of people that do it because they love music.
But I'm also a music lover, and I'll always try a lot of different things.
I came to town thinking that everybody had the same idea of what country music was that I did.
I can see me continuing to make the best music I can, and let the chips fall where they may.
It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.
But the beauty of Einstein's equations, for example, is just as real to anyone who's experienced it as the beauty of music. We've learned in the 20th century that the equations that work have inner harmony.
One of the basic things about a string is that it can vibrate in many different shapes or forms, which gives music its beauty.
I compose my own stuff. I've been writing songs with words. I've been playing more on the keyboard because I can transpose it to sheet music on the computer.
Even people that know Johnny Cash's music really well and know that he was married don't really know that much about June Carter. So finding out about her really helped to inform my performance and to bring her to the front in a way that she has never been before.
I was in the band as a boy and was taught music and learned to compose.
I'm a fan of music from all over the world.