Rodney Atkins Quotes

My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.

I feel like 'Work' was a really good song for people to get to know me, as it's obviously biographical. With 'Bounce,' I wanted to make sure people know there's a fun side to me as well as the somber and serious one.

If you meet me, you might not get to know me. If you hear my music? You'll get to know me.

The first album is an introduction, and when people listen to it top to bottom, I want them to know me.

I personally wouldn't want my second album to sound like my first; it might sound very rocky or hard rock - and that wouldn't be melancholy. So if people think my music is melancholic, then so be it. It's meant to be uplifting, and I'm just basically saying what needs to be said.

I'm a big advocate of music being an honest representation of who you are as a person and your perspective.

I like it when songs develop in some way. Four minutes usually isn't enough time for something to develop musically.

The blues is a mighty long road. Or it could be a river, one that twists and turns and flows into a sea of limitless musical potential.

When I was 13 or 14, I took seven months off from touring. I did a lot of weekend gigs in Louisiana. We have fairs and festivals every weekend. But I took seven months off. That's when I really started digging deep. I wrote a couple songs that year that I still play every now and then for people.

My music isn't anything but me. It has jazz in it, and rock'n'roll, and it has an urgency to it.

I've been in the studio experimenting on making a CD of my own. I'm trying out different producers, styles, sounds. With music, as opposed to acting, you are not playing a character. You are showing people who you are. I really want to have my spirit in it.

When you make a solo record, it's you. It's your name. It has to be the right songs for how you feel.

Mixtapes are very personal, and they describe who you are better than an album sometimes.

For the life of me, I'll never understand how you can be an artist but not want people to understand who you are as a person.

When people speak their own language you get a much better sense of who they are.

I don't wanna get into that space where a lot of guys now, their solo album is like eight or 10 songs with other people, you don't get an idea of who this guy is. I just wasn't interested in that.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

Looking back on the production of 'Nevermind,' I'm embarrassed by it now. It's closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

I'm just going to make the music I love to make, and I'm going to mature with my music.

My favorite artists are the ones that I can take their eight or ten albums, and I can see the arc of their life.

I'm not committed to putting myself up for a blues guitarist, even though I love playing the blues.

I hate that song 'Mr. Bojangles.' It drives me up the wall, since it's not about him at all. He was never a bum in jail.

One of the very few things that I actually read about myself on blogs that got to me was people saying, 'Ne-Yo doesn't do R&B music anymore.' Just because I stepped off the porch to explore doesn't mean I don't live in that house anymore.

There's this song called 'Brad Chester,' which is like the depths of my family. It comes from a very personal place.

My music is a whole reflection of who I'm as an individual.