I'm actually not an exhibitionist at all. When you get onstage and you get under the lights playing music, I feel more hidden and more alone than anywhere else. You hide behind your music and let your emotions come out through the music.

You know not having my real dad around and having a step dad made me want to be a great dad. So now I have been one for 9 years. And now 3 daughters. So, that is what I am - a dad, first and foremost, before anything else. It's just something that comes natural now.

When I was a kid, my step dad started this business and would go out and get lost cows and stuff. He was part-time truck driver, farmer and cowboy. He taught me how to ride from an early age.

You don't try to get influenced by everything that's going on with all the other music around you. You don't listen to the radio - I mean, I don't. When I get ready to do an album, I don't listen to anybody else; I don't wanna be influenced.

You know, we're very private, and I think that we really separate and try to keep our privacy to ourselves. There's things that people assume a lot of times, and we understand that people are interested, but we really try to keep our family life private as much as we can.

I'm a private guy, and you don't want to be out there preaching to people. But faith leads you in the decisions you make. You don't always pick the right path, but it's there in your conscience.

I coach my daughter's softball and basketball team. We go to all the school functions. We go out to eat at night and take the kids to the movies. We try to be as normal as we can.

I feel like that I'm learning all the time. I'm learning from new artists, from established artists... every time I listen to '70s rock 'n' roll records, I'm learning. And I think that I'm just now starting to get a hold on what I do.

I think you have to be a little bit strict. You can't be friend and their parent in a lot of situations, especially in this day and age where it's so dangerous for kids. So there's a bit of sternness, I guess, in the way I raise my kids.

I mean, there's a little bit that gets out, but for the most part, the thing that makes us work, and makes our family successful, and our life successful, is when we walk home and we walk into our doors of our house, all that other stuff is left outside. It's not a factor.

You don't try to get influenced by everything that's going on with all the other music around you. You don't listen to the radio - I mean, I don't. When I get ready to do an album, I don't listen to anybody else; I don't wanna be influenced.

The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country.