I was 17, and a friend said, 'Man, you've got to listen to this song,' and he played 'Man to Man.' From there on, I was hooked on country. Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clint Black. Every show that came through America West Arena, I was there.
There are early videos of me at three years old with a tiny guitar trying to sing 'Friends in Low Places' by Garth Brooks.
I'm from Tullahoma, TN which is an hour south of Nashville, and I grew up and wanted to be like Garth Brooks, so I moved to Nashville when I was 18 to chase a dream.
I don't care if people remember Garth Brooks.
I can take the steel guitars and fiddles off, we can make it a little more pop, cover ideas that are a little less cowboy. But you got to look at yourself in the mirror and ask, whose flag you are under? For Garth Brooks, I'm steel, fiddles, red, white and blue.
I started rocking and rolling when Guns N' Roses came out. It wasn't until Garth Brooks came around that I really got back to country. He made it fun again. To me, in country music, the rigor mortis was setting in and it just wasn't fun anymore. Garth brought everyone back over to country and made it cool again.
I've always been a huge fan of Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and George Strait. That's what I grew up on. But I also loved Usher and Justin Timberlake.
Every time I hear a Garth Brooks record I tend to want to hear James Taylor.
I think when people think of music from coming from Oklahoma, they think of Toby Keith or even Garth Brooks or even Woody Guthrie. People think, "Why do we have to just be about the Bible and about football? Why can't we be about something like the Flaming Lips?" And I salute them! I say, "Well, that's great if you want that."
We're able to blend and rock any crowd. If you put us on a tour with Garth Brooks, we'll take his crowd too.
I was a huge Garth Brooks fan.
I think Kenny Chesney or Garth Brooks would be the coolest duet partners. I look up to them so much for their work ethics.
Part of the great thing of looking back on how I went from the cattle ranch to the White House was, I was a country music DJ. I saw Garth Brooks perform for free in 1992 at the Colorado State Fair where I met this person who knew about this graduate school program.
