Jason Aldean

As a new artist, you come out, and there are so many other new artists. It seems like there's a whole wave of new artists that come along every year. In '05, I was part of the crop. It was a lot harder trying to set myself apart from the rest of the pack.

There's nothing cooler than a good fitting, worn-in pair of Wrangler jeans, so it's great that with the new Retro line, my fans can go out and rock the same styles that I love.

If you say, 'I'm going to cut this song because I know the teenagers are going to love it,' well, then you're going to alienate everybody else. When I cut my record, I'm just going to cut the things that I like, and whoever likes it, likes it. That's too much work to try to figure out the demographic. That's too much like a business.

I have a love of baseball and a love of music.

Our first No. 1 was 'Why' and we waited two years to have another one. It felt like forever, and now I feel like I'm celebrating one every few months, which I love.

I love fried okra. The fact that it's okra makes me feel like it's good for you - I forget the fact that it's fried.

I love playing music. And that's what it's all about.

Country music in the mid-'90s was a big influence on my career, and I played all the songs that are referenced in '94' back in my club days. Joe Diffie was rocking a sick mullet, and he was hotter than ever... just putting out monster hit after monster hit. It totally takes me back to those days, and it makes me smile every time I hear it.

In the music business, especially the country music business, every 10 years or so you're going to have this changing of the guard, this wave of new artists that comes in.

There are people out there who are into traditional country music and for those people you have artists like Brad Paisley and Josh Turner and Alan Jackson. Then you have artists with a progressive style of country music, like myself and Eric Church and Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert.

Macon has such a rich musical history - and the state of Georgia, as well.

You don't want to get too ahead of yourself and go out thinking you can play stadiums every night, and they end up being about half-full.