“When you take other people's opinions, you end up flailing and you have no cente…” — Gary Allan

I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit.

I try to write relevant songs about life and whatever I'm going through and whatever people are going through.

I think the real problem is that nobody buys albums anymore, so you don't get the depth of the artists that are out today. What you get is whatever they felt is politically correct to get on there and actually make some impact. I think that's where you're losing your depth. You're only getting the very top of everything. It really bothers me.

When my wife passed, I stopped doing interviews and I stopped doing meet-and-greets, mostly because I sort of became this suicide ambassador. Everybody wanted to tell me their story.