In my 30s, I became more open to music other than country or bluegrass.

If you got in my truck, you were listening to country music, and that's the way it was for a long time. I'm a little more open to other sources of music now, a lot more. But for the formative years, I was just very into country.

I don't think my music has changed to reflect getting married or having kids. But... if you want to continue to write your own songs, you've got to find deeper stuff to write about. You've got to go to different places.

Where I'm at in my relationship with my wife or my family and life in general, I feel like it all comes out in the music. Hopefully, it's always there, but in an ambiguous and abstract way and not real straightforward.

I feel like I've got a nice little niche where I stay just below the radar, which is perfect. I just don't want to be known for anything other than music.

If someone wants a picture, I'm so honored and so flattered, and I hope I have a reputation as someone who goes out of his way to do those kinds of things.

I put a lot of time into making sure my relationship with my family is well taken care of because I want to be as successful as a father as I am as an entertainer.

I wrote that song 'Black,' and it was just this idea that I had been married for 10 years. Everyone talks about 'happily ever after,' but there's so much more to it than that.

I never met Johnny Cash personally, but I feel like I did because I listened to so much of his music, and even though he's gone, it's still there: you can go pull a vinyl record out and hear his personal thoughts and his voice and feel connected to him.

I discovered early on that I was more of a strummer than a picker.

I try to make my box as big as it can be because I never want to do the same thing twice.

I'm on stage 13. I'm at that can't-be-replaced stage. The transformation I've been through personally with my wife is amazing, but having two girls and a boy, man, that's the painful stuff.

Love always had my number. I could never patch a breakup together with whiskey and a one-night stand. I took them real hard.

I don't tour to make money: I do it because I love it. When I'm putting a tour together, I'm not sitting with number-crunchers, having them tell me I can't do this or that.

Hey, if someone is crushing on me, and it brings them out to the show, so be it!

It's Frederick Dierks Bentley, but my whole family goes by their middle name - my sister, my brother. So from day one, I've always been called Dierks.

I've known my wife since we were 13 years old in eighth grade, and we kinda dated each other's best friends. The four of us always hung out, but I really wanted her. We dated around 17, but I was no way mature enough for her.

The transformation that happens when a young artist goes on the road - you put the acoustic guitar down and start to play the electric a little louder - it gets a little bit ragged.

There should be a whole book written about that one word: country. What does that mean, country? It's such a huge umbrella. I would hope that what makes it country is that it all starts with a song. The story being told in three and a half minutes that is not being told on another station.

I wrote a song called 'Here on Earth,' and the hook is, 'There's no answers here on earth.' Basically, searching for the 'why' when someone passes away, and I feel really fortunate that my dad lived as long as he did. But no matter what happens or how it happens, it's certainly a stinker.

Music is my first love, and I can't step away from her. I love music, and I love playing and living the dream, but I also miss my family.

Meeting my wife changed everything; it really, in the long run, made me a much better artist, a much better songwriter, a much better maker of albums.

When I'm done with all of this, I'm going to write a book on it: have a guide to having a life and being on the road. Especially having a family and being on the road.

If I'm not on stage, I'm a pilot. I like flying planes; I have a little plane back in Nashville.

I go from being in front of 2,000 people, shot-gunning beers on stage and acting like a complete idiot, to being in a Mommy and Me class, waving a little pink handkerchief around 12 hours later!

If people sneak into my show, that's a sign of a good show, you know? If people want to risk getting in trouble with the law to come see you play music, that's a sign you're doing something right.

I was 17, and a friend said, 'Man, you've got to listen to this song,' and he played 'Man to Man.' From there on, I was hooked on country. Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clint Black. Every show that came through America West Arena, I was there.

As soon as I got into country music, it was like hook, line and sinker. I was so focused on country, I ended up leaving all those '80s hair-band CDs behind - which now I still wish I had, but I was done with it.

I've had fans and friends in the business say, 'Oh man, you've made it.' I still don't feel like I've made it. I still feel like I'm as good as my last show, as good as my last single.

Growing up in Arizona, I love fireworks, shooting off bottle rockets and M80s.

When I got to Nashville, people started asking me about how I got into country music. I'd tell them I came from a place where people wore cowboy hats for a real reason.

I was like, 'Man, bluegrass - that's like Roy Clark playing banjo on 'Hee Haw.' I'm a huge 'Hee Haw' fan. But I didn't know about bluegrass. It seemed like old people's music.

I have so much respect for the genre of country music and for all the greats that have been a part of it. I'm a country singer, I'm a country fan, and I'm a student of country music.

I went into the Verizon store the other day, and the salesman was pretty excited. He was like, 'Hey Dierks, what can I show you?' I said, 'The cheapest, lowest tech phone you have.' I think he was disappointed. Everybody else was running out for the new iPhone 6, but I got a flip phone.

I'm trying to call more and text less. I don't want to check my phone 5,000 times a day anymore. It was getting to me. I'm bringing 'old' back.

Some people associate red with love, but to me, red is for an earlier stage of a relationship. Black is much deeper, to me. It's certainly the sexiest color.

Everyone talks about new love all the time, but there's so much to draw from when you've been in a longer relationship. It makes me stick my chest out a little bit. It's like, 'I know what you've been through, but you don't know what it's like over here.'

I listen to all types of music, but big rock records are the ones that, in the walk-up, make me wonder, 'What's this next set going to sound like?'

I ask myself all the time, 'Why keep doing this?' If I wasn't exploring or finding something to write about that was personal or meant something, there'd be no reason. If I was ever making a record just to make a record, or ever just like, 'Just put something out there that someone will buy,' I would quit.

I get nervous playing the Opry still. You take that nervous energy and channel it into being amped.

I started thinking about this truck and why do I still have this same truck? After all of these years, why am I holding on to that? I just starting thinking about other things: guitars, boots and jeans. I just had a tendency to hold on to the things that have meaning to me.

I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I've ever been in my life.

Seven has always been my lucky number. It's on my guitar pick; in sports, that was always the number I was, and 'Riser' is my seventh album. With this album kind of coming to an end and having seven nominations at the ACMs, it feels like a bigger story in play for me, and it's the perfect number. I wouldn't have wanted eight!

Honestly, I sleep best wearing nothing. But with kids, I've learned to sleep with underwear very close by, if not wrapped around one of my feet, so I'm ready to go if something happens.

I remember somewhere in his 70s, my dad started wearing a nightgown - like an old-school grandpa gown! I can see how that might be somewhere in my future.

I hope fans walk away still feeling like their batteries are charged. I want fans walking away high-fiving strangers.

I hung out with Merle Haggard on his bus, which sort of freaks me out. It was him and his wife. We played with Merle in Oklahoma City. I'm from Arizona, and we talked about Arizona, and he remembered playing for two dollars a day down there at a bar.

I met Michael Jordan on a golf course! I don't even know what to say. I'm still freaked out that I met him.

It's hard to make music when you're not excited about it. So trying new things and going for new things is something that I can enjoy doing.

That's how I feel, oddly, when I walk on stage in front of 20,000 people, and it's crazy, the madness: I feel the most relaxed and free, and all of my worries and troubles just are gone. Just I feel the most present in that moment.