Dierks Bentley

“As soon as I got into country music, it was like hook, line and sinker. I was so focused on country, I ended up leaving all those '80s hair-band CDs behind - which now I still wish I had, but I was done with it.”

“I wrote that song 'Black,' and it was just this idea that I had been married for 10 years. Everyone talks about 'happily ever after,' but there's so much more to it than that.”

“And if I want to get involved in choosing sides, I usually pick hockey or football.”

“And I'm the biggest country fan there is, but I'm always a little cautious of a slower song or just a song with subject matter.”

“If people sneak into my show, that's a sign of a good show, you know? If people want to risk getting in trouble with the law to come see you play music, that's a sign you're doing something right.”

“My wife is cool enough to let me write about personal things, to be a songwriter exploring the shadowy sides of love.”

“If you got in my truck, you were listening to country music, and that's the way it was for a long time. I'm a little more open to other sources of music now, a lot more. But for the formative years, I was just very into country.”

“Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene.”

“But as far as being an American and loving this country and getting a chance to travel across it every day and meeting people on the road and folks in the military, I love this country on so many different levels.”

“When I'm done with all of this, I'm going to write a book on it: have a guide to having a life and being on the road. Especially having a family and being on the road.”

“I also was a huge 'Dukes of Hazzard' fan. I used to have T-shirts that said 'Dierks of Hazzard' custom-made.”

“I've had some shows where I really plan out what I'm going to say. Then I've had other shows where I'm like, 'Take a sip of the Ole Smoky Moonshine and just let it be natural and cross your fingers that you say the right things.'”

“I hope fans walk away still feeling like their batteries are charged. I want fans walking away high-fiving strangers.”

“I don't tour to make money: I do it because I love it. When I'm putting a tour together, I'm not sitting with number-crunchers, having them tell me I can't do this or that.”

“I try to make my box as big as it can be because I never want to do the same thing twice.”

“My dad and grandpa were in the army and as a country singer you're constantly playing at military bases all across the country and meeting soldiers and their families and hearing their stories.”

“I really can't tell you the feeling I feel, like, being on stage: it's such a high; it's like running a marathon. You just can't get that feeling anywhere else.”

“I put a lot of time into making sure my relationship with my family is well taken care of because I want to be as successful as a father as I am as an entertainer.”

“I've had fans and friends in the business say, 'Oh man, you've made it.' I still don't feel like I've made it. I still feel like I'm as good as my last show, as good as my last single.”

“Meeting my wife changed everything; it really, in the long run, made me a much better artist, a much better songwriter, a much better maker of albums.”