Sam Hunt

To me, country songs are simple.

Fortunately, the music from the first record really connected with people, and I was really proud of that.

There's this sort of model that exists in Nashville that we think we have to abide by: You put out a record, and in two years you have to put out another one and have three or four singles. There are all these rules that I've just sort of thrown out the window.

I'm going to put music out when I feel like it's ready.

I was a product of the relationships with my family, the environment I grew up in; all those things I kind of put on the back burner when I got into music, and my life all changed dramatically.

As much as I enjoy traveling and playing on stage as an artist, I really find my true sense of purpose in a room writing a song.

I realized after writing songs for years how important it is. Whether it provides a living for me or not, that creative outlet is something I need.

I really feel like I honed in on a sound and a style of writing that best fits me.

I like doing stuff like, for instance, in the 'Leave the Night On' video, I had on a plain white T-shirt. I just wanted to do something to it to make it a little different, so I just cut a big strip out of the side, from the shirttail up to my armpit, and cut a big red strip out of another T-shirt and just sewed it in there.

I definitely grew up as a small-town... I guess you could call it the 'small-town football player,' according to the stereotype. I wasn't involved in music at all.

On my teams, as a guy who grew up hunting and fishing, I was in the minority in terms of music and lifestyle. I became good friends with people who listened to R&B and rap. But it wasn't just an issue of being around it - I was naturally drawn to it right off the bat.

Traditionally, music has been a means of separating ourselves as people from another group of people.

The most flattering thing I hear is, 'I didn't think I liked country music before I heard your record.'

A lot of times, songs can blend together on the radio because there's so many great songs out there.

I don't let many things that are superficial keep me in a box.

Picking up a guitar brought a lot of balance into my life.

I learned from making a few of these low-budget videos early on that the best way to go about doing it is just to keep it honest and real.

It's just really fulfilling to celebrate with a group of folks, a team, than it is personally.

The first song I learned on the guitar was a Kenny Chesney song called 'What I Need to Do'; it was just an easy song to play... and it was really cool to see that come full-circle a few years later and have him record a song that I was part of.

I try to make music that's relevant to my life and relatable to the culture I live in.

Putting out music as it's made, versus holding it until an album's finished, allows me to be more timely and maintain balance.

I do feel pressure internally and externally to put out music, but that excites me because I love songwriting, and this brings me back to why I got in music in the first place, so I'm excited about that.

New experiences give you new perspectives on life.

Prior to getting into music, I interacted with, on a daily basis, about 5-10 percent of the people that I've interacted with since then. I've been meeting people from different backgrounds and different cultures. That did allow for a lot of change. I've changed as a product of that, but it's been positive.

I grew up really close to Alabama, about 10 minutes from the Alabama line. We'd make trips to Alabama, and I feel at home there.

Folks in Alabama seem like folks in Georgia to me. I feel like you can just about combine the two.

Obviously, I love country music, so I wanna be able to live in the country music genre and then play to country music fans.

From the pop side, people like Usher, and when they first came out, I listened to guys like K-Ci and JoJo; that '90s R&B thing really caught my ear.

Shane McAnally is a really good friend of mine. He's one of the first guys that really embraced what I was doing with an open mind.

I didn't know what to expect, having not been an artist before. From the outside, you only see romantic snapshots of what seems like a great lifestyle, and it is, but it's also grueling.

There's such a strong community element in country - it's like a family. So I don't want to do anything that can come off, even if I'm not intentionally doing it, as giving the perception that I'm trying to abandon that family.

There's a system in place in Nashville, and for a long time, I was trapped in this idea that the only way to do it was to come to town, get a record deal, and do it the way they say. And that system works. But it caters to a specific kind of artist, and I didn't necessarily fit that mold.

You think about the artists I look at as icons, and you assume they were instantly embraced. That's usually not the case. In reality, they had to overcome a lot of noes to get where they wanted to be.

I never thought of myself as a performer or songwriter or singer.

I try to stay as naive as possible so I'm not as aware as much of the risks.

Once it's out there in the universe, it's serving its purpose, and I'm proud to have other folks hear the music that I was a part of making.

It's liberating to wear clothes that are outside the boundaries of what I'm supposed to wear, ya know, based on the traditional model, whether that be a country music singer, or being from the country. It's not a rebellious thing.

My style, in terms of what I wear, is kind of representative of the music.

With a song called 'House Party,' you'd expect it to be more about a big party, not as much about a relationship, so we tried to put a little bit of a unique twist on it.

I kind of have my little OCD wood shed at my house where everything is just right when I go write.

After graduating college, I was coming out of a routine I'd been in for several years, all the way back to high school. It was a year-round process of constantly having to work and be disciplined, and I was able to understand and connect the dots between all those characteristics - especially hard work and success.

I connect music to the emotions that come from relationships, so most of the songs that I write are inspired by those circumstances, emotions, feelings, all that kind of stuff.

I love all kinds of music, and I would write really traditional country songs and songs that were just really out there, that didn't sound country at all, and everything in between.

I was really only around country music on the radio, and I think because I grew up so close to Atlanta, and R&B was such a big part of that culture, by proximity I think a lot of that music influenced me without knowing it.

I don't really know that I'm aware of a lot of the inspiration and influence that I'm under, because I didn't have an extensive musically educational upbringing.

'Make You Miss Me' is an important song to me. Having it go No. 1 as the fifth single off of my first record is the cherry on top of a chapter in my life I'll never forget.

I was able to really see that connection as a football player where success requires a lot of hard work and effort, physically and mentally.

I don't think I'm conscious of most of the things I've drawn from football, because they're so ingrained in me now... understanding that the discipline and the routine and the regimentation to be successful.

I thought that I could have a career in music. I really didn't know exactly what I wanted to do or how I would go about doing it.

I've always craved winning. It's just easier in sports because there's a scoreboard.