In my songs there are no bad words, so kids can sing them, and girls can identify with singing with them, too, because it's not like a man singing reggaeton.
That's because we did not set out to make black music. We set out to make quality music that everyone could enjoy and listen to.
To just get in front of different kinds of audiences is important for me. I do think it's important for music to be a big family. Whether it's country or not.
I can have a song with Ariana Grande that is going to be the song for all the kids and the teen girls, and then another song that could be for a different group of people who all love the song. I'm with whoever. Whatever type of people want to love the music and whatever they love about the music is fine with me.
I end up pleading my case to alternative programmers - you're telling me that my music is too dark for pop, too pop for alternative, and urban radio won't touch it - so we have a record that doesn't fit in. And what is more alternative than that?
To me, rock n' roll is rock n' roll. I try to think of it as that. To me, Funkadelic and Metallica exist in the same world.
I'm still looking for the rules of what is and isn't pop music. I'm pop. I mean, of course I am. What isn't pop? There should be a pop amnesty where everyone reclaims it.
I want people to focus on listening, not the image. And I want to play to everyone: rednecks, dubstep kids, punk rockers, and people who like as-real-as-it-gets country music.
I made records for people who would buy them. No color, no ethnic, no political - I don't want that, never did.
If there is enough space on radio for Busted and McFly, who are basically the same band, or for 50,000 versions of Stereophonics and Coldplay, there must be enough room for all of us.
I know a lot of people who enjoy rap music who aren't black. You can't just say it's black music. To segregate films the way Hollywood likes to segregate films, ultimately everyone loses.
I'm not focused on radio or whether I'm going to get all the audiences... all I wanted were great songs that were universal to any listener - Black, White, Green, Yellow; any kind a age difference.
I don't have a problem with how people receive the music. I feel like it's for everybody.
Undeniably, I'm a country singer; I'm a country songwriter. But I feel like I make country music for people who like country music and for people who don't.
I don't know where "bro country" came from or what it really means, but a lot of those guys are my buddies and I support their music. Within country there are lots of styles: stone-cold country, like Brandy Clark, and there's Florida Georgia Line with what they do, which is completely different and bringing a whole new audience. There's room for everyone.
I don't really care what music's made on - I love guitars, but I'm fine with great electronic music.
There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies. But I never saw it that way. I always thought music was open to all things.
Whether you like modern incarnations of what country radio hits are, or you like what I'm doing, or you like something really off in folk, poetry Americana land, it's all just music, man. If you like one of them, great - go buy it.
I don't want only young black people that listen to my music be able to appreciate it. I just want people to be able to appreciate it.
