Dierks Bentley

I want to be free to be any version of me I feel like being. I don't want to be McDonald's that serves the same food every time. ”

I'm surrounded by all these strong women - my publicist, my manager, and my wife - and sometimes I think that women are more evolved than men, and they are able to process a heartache better. ”

I remember somewhere in his 70s, my dad started wearing a nightgown - like an old-school grandpa gown! I can see how that might be somewhere in my future. ”

My wife is cool enough to let me write about personal things, to be a songwriter exploring the shadowy sides of love. ”

I ask myself all the time, 'Why keep doing this?' If I wasn't exploring or finding something to write about that was personal or meant something, there'd be no reason. If I was ever making a record just to make a record, or ever just like, 'Just put something out there that someone will buy,' I would quit. ”

The transformation that happens when a young artist goes on the road - you put the acoustic guitar down and start to play the electric a little louder - it gets a little bit ragged. ”

I'm on stage 13. I'm at that can't-be-replaced stage. The transformation I've been through personally with my wife is amazing, but having two girls and a boy, man, that's the painful stuff. ”

I never met Johnny Cash personally, but I feel like I did because I listened to so much of his music, and even though he's gone, it's still there: you can go pull a vinyl record out and hear his personal thoughts and his voice and feel connected to him. ”