When I was 13, I was just figuring out how to play 'Eruption,' poorly, by Eddie Van Halen.

I love bluegrass music, I love acoustic music, and I try at the right times to push that a little bit.

A Sunday morning spent reading the paper together, maybe drinking some mimosas, alone, and talking until noon. That would be pretty amazing. Married couples with kids will understand.

I think the great country songs mixed with some of that bluegrass instrumentation - and surrounding all that with a little bit of a rock vibe and energy - is the kind of music I make.

And if I want to get involved in choosing sides, I usually pick hockey or football.

But as far as being an American and loving this country and getting a chance to travel across it every day and meeting people on the road and folks in the military, I love this country on so many different levels.

As a songwriter, you might write every day and throughout the course of a year you might get four songs that are really special.

That's what I love about Nashville and the music community - seeing kids around acoustic music and bluegrass picking parties is the best.

I'm part of the party, getting the crowd fired up, singing songs, pouring drinks, whatever it takes to get them to have a good time. When I walk into the meet-and-greet, someone's always going to have a story, a sad story or a happy story.

Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene.

My dad and grandpa were in the army and as a country singer you're constantly playing at military bases all across the country and meeting soldiers and their families and hearing their stories.

I try to make an album that reflects what I love about country music. It's not just all about happy parties all the time. There are some sad songs.

When you go to the Opry for a show or hear it on the radio, you get the whole circle of country music.

I like big shows, a lot of volume and a lot of energy. I love electric instruments. But I do love mixing those with bluegrass instruments and cranking those up, too, with a little bit of that rock energy.

And I'm the biggest country fan there is, but I'm always a little cautious of a slower song or just a song with subject matter.

I'm a huge fan of Billy Idol. I spiked my hair every day like him in 7th and 8th grade.

I'm a member of the George Jones fan club, and I'm a member of U2's fan club.

I also was a huge 'Dukes of Hazzard' fan. I used to have T-shirts that said 'Dierks of Hazzard' custom-made.

I think I've claimed the right to be any version of me that I want to be.

That's what we get to do as songwriters, right? You get to explore stuff.

Whether lyrically or musically, it reaches in there and grabs your soul. That's the stuff I gravitate toward.

I do see the world as being different for girls - especially now, having daughters.

It's not that you can do this calculated move to try to further your career. You just follow what's in your heart, and later you look back and go, 'I was either really dumb or really smart, I can't believe I did that.'

I really can't tell you the feeling I feel, like, being on stage: it's such a high; it's like running a marathon. You just can't get that feeling anywhere else.

I got into rock music at thirteen, listening to Van Halen, learned how to play the electric guitar.

I can act... well, kind of. I'm comfortable in front of a camera.

A typical day for me on tour is a marathon - it's like five days rolled into one.

I try to make sure to get off the bus as much as I can, try to do something during the day that's local to where I am, whether it's hiking or fishing.

I love singing fun songs; I've built a career on them.

My wife is cool enough to let me write about personal things, to be a songwriter exploring the shadowy sides of love.

Most of my read on America is through looking through the front windshield of a bus and hanging out with country music fans backstage.

Being married is one thing, but having kids will completely change you. I still go out and hang with my buddies, but having two daughters will completely change your perspective on the world.

The people I always loved listening to had a little bit of dirt under their fingernails because they had done some living and had these stories to talk about.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I tell my wife when she's listening to my songs that the slightest hint of whether she likes it or not puts the pressure on me.

I'm surrounded by all these strong women - my publicist, my manager, and my wife - and sometimes I think that women are more evolved than men, and they are able to process a heartache better.

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!