Anybody can be a star with the right song.
— Brad Paisley
I'm going to obviously do my best as a father to set a good example for my children, and I want them to see good examples from our leaders.
I try to be careful how much I sing about the suburban house or whatever.
Our business has changed so much. Do people even want albums, or do they just buy singles now? You sort of feel like you're the last guy manufacturing VCRs... but I really like albums, and so I like doing them. I'll be the last one making them, even when no one's buying them.
The Stones were a big influence on me and the Beatles, obviously.
I really believe you'll get a music video one of these days that I shot with an iPad because it's that consistent and that good. It's HD.
I'm always trying to think of things we haven't done.
I think if you ignore the generation after yours, you will be obsolete very quickly.
At certain times, your career should be a party.
I like Katy Perry. I like Kesha.
Surprise is important. I think that's the essence of entertainment, really.
I live in the extremes.
I like it when two sounds complement each other but are way different on a record.
If a little kid picks up Guitar Hero and learns 'Smoke On The Water,' he soon finds out that if he wants the chicks to look at him, he'd better learn it on the guitar!
I still cherish relationships that I made early on as much as anything in my life.
I do standup once a year, when I host the CMAs.
I can draw really well.
When you discuss racism, it's almost a no-win scenario - but I don't think that means we shouldn't be discussing it.
We have to be as good as we want to be as a nation.
I wanted to be Buck Owens and Bill Anderson and Roger Miller. With a higher-resolution video screen. And lasers.
Something about cactuses and rock music is a good combination.
It's interesting to hear what somebody does when they have no interest in playing by the rules.
It would be neat to sing with Roger Miller.
You have different stages in your career where you have different things to prove. And early on, like most people who move to Nashville, I wanted to prove that I belonged here, that I belonged in this format, that I had a love for it.
There are phrases that are totally cliche that we, as songwriters, owe it to ourselves to not use again.
A creative space is an important thing. There are so many studios that feel like doctor's offices in Nashville. I couldn't write there.
I listen to the same things that a lot of my fans do, and I grew up in much the same way they're growing up.
When you're with somebody as iconic as Mick Jagger or John Fogerty, I'm really aware that, in asking these guys to collaborate with me, I don't want to add a footnote to their career that's like, 'Shouldn't' have done that.' It's important to make sure that they're well represented.
I'm sick of feeling like we're in a decline. Let's look at the good.
The late-sixties Teles are the best value you can get for a vintage guitar.
I'm somebody who likes to gravitate toward people who aren't necessarily famous.
Some of the worst selfies I've ever seen are at Auschwitz or Ground Zero.
I consider myself a bit of a comedian. I write a lot of humorous songs.
Anytime you're in West Virginia or near it, and you sing, 'Take Me Home, Country Roads,' it's a sight to behold.
When you see Obama and Trump shake hands and seem to show respect to one another - that is what we need.
I have two little boys, and I want them to feel like this is the nation that I know. That this is the nation that isn't petty.
Country music's always had the best musicians in any format of music, and I always gravitated toward that, stuff that was musically interesting.
A hat has to be shaped to a person's face so it fights just right. It has to be done right. If you put my hat on, with my shape, you'd look like an idiot. If the bill is too high or too saggy, you look like a European tourist going to their first country concert.
That's why we do this. In country music, we do this for this very reason... to impact people lyrically, to be a part of their lives.
As long as you continue to have new songs, there's usually some new topic or something to present.
The artists who stick around for a while are the ones who go, 'Oh, that's cool, never thought of that. Ought to do that.'
When you hear a banjo through stutter edit, it's the coolest thing you ever heard.
I really like Ed Sheeran.
Our songs aren't metaphorical, normally: they're literal in their interpretation.
You're a sitting duck in a mall if you're a celebrity. It's like that scene from 'Guarding Tess,' I think it is, where Shirley MacLaine goes to the mall just to feel good about her celebrity.
If somebody says, 'Do you remember the first time you heard a Rolling Stones song?' if you say you do, you're crazy. You've just always heard them. You might remember the first time it impacted you, but the first time you heard one, you were in a cradle.
I had an old, red-covered '63 AC30 - one of the best AC30s I've ever heard. I cut the whole of the first record with it.
By no means do I try to go out and hang out with famous people.
We're trying to do the thing you don't expect out of country music. Which is to say, 'Go see the world.'
I've always been able to laugh at myself.
