Matthew Ramsey

I think it's natural for people to see a band and imagine themselves as part of that. That's what I grew up fantasizing about, looking at posters of bands on my wall. There is an allure to a band.

I can't imagine being a girl out there on the road. We can throw a hat on and stink. Girls have to do their hair.

I get excited about a crowd that likes our kind of music.

You definitely want your own fans, but you also want the support of your peers and the people you work with.

When people want to be associated with us, in the end, that's going to help us gain more fans.

There's no need to put a dumb picture of us on the album cover. We always look at ourselves and think, 'Wow, we look like idiots.' We'd rather have a piece of art on there.

We definitely wanted to show we're a band that can be around, and we have something to say other than the lighter, 'pickup line' sort of songs.

There's no such thing as a broken heart, and there's no such thing as a Sasquatch.

A band in our position, we have a first impression to make. We don't want to come out of the gate and make people sad. I think we consciously made that choice to keep it happy and up.

Work hard at doing what you feel is right. Don't be scared!

Working with a company like LIDS just makes sense for us. Every night, we play a song we wrote that has now become a hit and was inspired by seeing so many of our fans wearing Snapbacks. Our fans are LIDS customers, and we are excited to partner up and bring them into the Old Dominion family.

Honestly, with pop and rock and things, artists are from all over the place, so they're kind of isolated. The city of Nashville helps create the camaraderie. Everyone moves there for the same reason.

We wanted to make a living, but success was creating a song that we enjoyed playing. Quite honestly, that is still a measure of success for us.

In a certain sense, every time you sit down to write a song, there's a fear that you've forgotten how to do it.

When we write songs, we don't ever sit down to write an Old Dominion song. We just sit down to write the best song we possibly can.

As writers, you spend so long trying to build your cred as a writer, and then everything comes together at the same time: your artist career happens when your songwriter career is, too.

When you go out for the night with your buddies, it feels like you're in a band, and I think everybody can relate to that.

The more successful we get, the more opportunities come our way.

When we come on the radio, people will go, 'That's Old Dominion,' 'cause it's a sound that can only be made by whatever the five of us make together.

We don't take ourselves too seriously. We're just friends that like to goof off.

Sometimes when you're writing a song, it's work, and you really have to make sure you're kind of pounding out every little piece of it. And then sometimes you write a song, and you turn around and you go, 'How did we do that?'

For me, 'I Can't Make You Love Me' is one of the most brilliantly-written songs ever.

I'm a huge Lionel Richie fan, and sometimes we actually listen to Lionel Richie on the bus.

The truth is, that's what we moved to Nashville to do - to learn how to write hit songs. We weren't necessarily trying to get on college radio. We're trying for mass appeal.

We love writing hit songs. That thrills us.

It's easy to get squashed down in this business, for sure. Nashville can definitely train you to not get too excited.

There's a lot of people out there - like, a lot of people out there - that wouldn't know our music if it wasn't for Spotify.

It's a huge deal for us to have our own headlining tour and our name on the ticket.

It's pretty cool to see, like, from town to town, how different the crowds are.

Our sound is different because it's who we are as a band.

The most important thing I can say is to make music that moves you. Don't try and chase what's on the radio or what you think people want to hear.

Sometimes you can gauge the excitement of the rest of the band. If I'm bringing a song in and they're excited, then I'll hold on to that one. But there are times where it's like, 'Eh, I don't really like that one,' and we have to send that one on.

Everyone wants the same thing in this band, so we definitely respect each other. I mean, all of us have had hit songs, so it's a band full of people who really know what they're talking about, so you have to respect that even when you think something you have might be great, and they go, 'Man, it's not as great as you think it is.'

We don't ever want to be this political band. We're just a bunch of dudes.

That's the challenge as a songwriter is that there's only so many things people want to hear about, and relationships is just one of those things.

It's fun to dress up and look good. And it's fun to try on clothes and wear a different jacket every night. It also helps you on stage to feel like you belong there.

Fashion is a way to separate yourself - to make a statement about who you are and that you're different.

I definitely wear a lot of Tom Ford jackets on stage.

I love art in general - architecture, anything creative.

We always talk about our kids being a great way to judge whether it's a hit song because there's something very basic about the way they perceive the music that I think needs to be there if it's gonna be a hit.

There are albums that I listen to religiously just because I'm such a big fan: any Bruce Springsteen album, or old George Strait albums because the songwriting's so strong.

This goes for our songwriting as well as our success as a band - the minute we stopped chasing what we thought people wanted to hear and started writing things that moved us, that's when people started paying attention.

There's no shame in being a support act for anyone. It's been extremely beneficial for us to be allowed onstage for any of the artists we've toured with, and we've gotten some big exposure from them sharing their crowds with us in the past.

When Taylor Swift was first beginning to really take off, a couple of guys I knew in her band called and offered me a job on her tour playing acoustic guitar and singing background vocals, and they thought I would be a really good fit for it.

The writing process for us is different with every song. Sometimes they come from our lives, or someone else we know may be going through something that we choose to write about.

There's something about the West Coast. The air is lighter. The vibe is chill.

In the end, yes, I'm the singer of Old Dominion, but we're a band of great singers and great musicians, and we just respect each other so much.

'Still Writing Songs About You' - that one hits me every time. For some reason, I really feel that song every time we play it. I just love the sound of it, and I feel like everybody probably has that person that they never fully forget or never can get past.

We take what we do seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously, and I think that kind of helps us stay focused on what's important - and that is the music, our fans, and our families.

We don't want to be the standard thing. We're more interested in having people hate us than glaze over us. We'd rather have a reaction than be in the middle.