Brad Paisley

If you fall in love with somebody, then you're not even worried about your bills. Love can take your mind off of anything.

I imagine there's a market for total depression. I grew up on George Jones and that really dark stuff.

It just gets easier in that you become more you in the process.

I've been on the road I think probably three years.

It comes down to building your own world out here on the road. It's who you surround yourself with. My band and crew are really positive guys.

I go to eat dinner with my folks when I'm home. I think that's the trick.

Willie Nelson, out there 200 days a year, calls his band family. And it is.

With my guys and with the way that we live out there, we work out a lot and try to eat right, but we try to basically keep it our own rhythm and our own world.

You look out there and there's people that, their day is changed because of your contribution to it.

The nice thing about the world that I've been able to inhabit for the last couple of years is that I'm given a lot of freedom. Not all artists really get that.

Anytime you do something from the heart, people just know it.

I have a to-do list and I have a farm I care for, and things I like to do for fun - going to movies and all that stuff. It's a painfully normal life!

No one can make the album they made 10 years ago with a straight face. There are two reasons: one is you change as a person. To be a true artist, I have to be true to who I am now and write that way. And the second thing is these are different times.

Alison Krauss is definitely my favorite singer that's ever lived. I've never heard anyone like her.

My life would be very puzzling to most people if they had to follow me around for a day or two.

I jetset around and play these songs and get to hang with some pretty amazing people, then I go home to a really great farm, though actually it's a disaster area of a farm at the moment. But it's certainly a blast. I wouldn't trade lives with anyone right now.

Country music has become the music that best represents the reality of American life.

To be a true artist, I have to be true to who I am now and write that way.

I love to play. When I'm off, I feel a little lost - like, shouldn't I be on stage somewhere?

No one dislikes LL Cool J. If you meet LL Cool J, you fall in love with LL Cool J. LL and I had mutual friends, and he and I had always talked about doing something. My fans know LL's music. And I love him - we're blood brothers at this point. We've been through the fire together. I know no finer person.

There may be people in my audience who may not agree with me on some particular issue - you know, say, as a gun owner, they may not agree with me, or, you know, someone may not agree with me on a gay marriage topic. Any of those things. But those shouldn't be the reasons you listen to my music.

If you were to hold me to a standard of, 'What are you doing, singing about a scratch-off ticket at your level of success?' then my music's gonna be ridiculous.

It's a very smart, progressive bunch, these people that make country music. They're not country hicks sitting behind a desk with a big cigar giving out record deals and driving round in Cadillacs with cattle horns on the front grille: it's a bunch of really wonderful, open-minded, great people down on Music Row that make this music.

I'm a huge, huge fan of almost everything British. I love 'The Office' - I was a faithful follower of that show before the American version.

I've always known from the time I was eight years old what I wanted to do. I would have been fairly content to be someone's lead guitar player.

I tended to lean towards the guys who both sang and played, such as Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Steve Wariner... And at the other end of the spectrum, I had Eric Clapton in a rock and blues sense, jazz guys such as Tal Farlow and Les Paul... Then Chet Atkins-type stuff.

I've heard my share of Van Halen. I never liked rock.

Life isn't always black and white. You're not always sure you're right. At least I'm not.

If you make the mistake of looking back too much, you aren't focused enough on the road in front of you.

Deep down, I'm just a West Virginia hillbilly.

Even in your darkest moments, you'll think of something that'll crack you up.

That there's no more important decision in life than who you marry.

My first tweet was at the CMT Awards when I won an award and typed, 'Thank you.' Then I was hooked because the followers started multiplying. It's a great tool.

My father's a firefighter. He was my whole life. And my brother-in-law and several family members are firefighters.

I love being an enigma. Every time I'm tempted to respond to someone who tries to put me in a box, politically - you know, someone who gets on the Internet and says, you're pro-gun, or you're anti-gun - I stop and say to myself, 'This is great; this is what I wanted. I wanted to be the guy you can't figure out.'

I'm aware of the fact that a lot of talented people out there will never get this chance.

I love any and all situations where you celebrate creativity.

When they say you're the best, I always remember that the majority of the audience probably thinks someone else should have gotten the award.

If you're really on top, you probably didn't do that great, 'cause you have to water it down a bit for it to get that mass appeal.

Anybody can be a star with the right song.

I'm sure there are a few things in my CD collection that might surprise people. I like classical music, the blues, and I'm a big fan of alternative rock.

If I get an idea for a song, I have a melody for it. I'm a musician first. I'm not limited by the fretboard.

I like to look at the songs like they're little movies.

I don't stare at a sheet of paper and try to think of a good word to use. I try to see where the story should go.

Even on the most serious ballads, I'll throw in a tongue-in-cheek remark.

As a guitar player, it's harder for me to impress somebody than it is to write a song that they like.

Guitar playing isn't really for everybody.

I really worked to try and be creative enough on the guitar parts so those who aren't real educated would know that there was some difficulty in doing it.

In the past, I tried to be more of a typical session guitarist. I wasn't so concerned with impressing anybody.

I changed my mindset and figured, Why not try to be really entertaining instrumentally?