Quotes from Sam Hunt

It's good to be proud of your heritage and your culture, but pride can be perverted.

I grew up really close to Alabama, about 10 minutes from the Alabama line. We'd make trips to Alabama, and I feel at home there.

I do think I'm country, but your definition of that word might be different from my definition. In my opinion, country music, the sound of country, has always evolved. But the one thing that has not changed is the story element. And I think country songs are truthful songs about life written by country people.

My golf game is lacking big time.

I have a whole, whole lot of respect for the men and women that serve our country.

I think that people in general appreciate honesty and not trying to cook something up just to fit a mold that would be beneficial for you. I never made music like that.

I'm still learning a lot as a songwriter. I try to write down and make a note of ideas that I cross paths with on a day-to-day basis, whether it be a conversation or something I hear on the radio, seeing a movie, or just thoughts in my head as I'm walking down the street.

I never thought of myself as a performer or songwriter or singer.

I have two or three guys that I'm really close to. We have a great friendship, and I think that helps our songwriting relationship. It's hard to start... with new people and cover the ground that I've covered with those guys.

I do feel pressure internally and externally to put out music, but that excites me because I love songwriting, and this brings me back to why I got in music in the first place, so I'm excited about that.

I didn't really know you could make a living in songwriting. I was just very fortunate to have the opportunity to play a few songs for a guy there named Jimmy Ritchey. Through that meeting, I met another couple guys and ended up getting a publishing deal in Nashville.

Some people don't like long bus rides, but I love them. There's sort of a sense of solitude.

With a song called 'House Party,' you'd expect it to be more about a big party, not as much about a relationship, so we tried to put a little bit of a unique twist on it.

I wasn't intentionally trying to be different, but that was an element of what I naturally do that happened to be unique enough to spark a curiosity for people.

I try to stay as naive as possible so I'm not as aware as much of the risks.

I have a cat named Dandelion.

To all my people back in Nashville who have been there from the start, you put your faith in me. You were there for the long haul.

My route is a little bit nontraditional. A lot of the people working in Nashville, they have a model. I don't really fit into that.

'Make You Miss Me' is an important song to me. Having it go No. 1 as the fifth single off of my first record is the cherry on top of a chapter in my life I'll never forget.

I experimented and explored ways to find my own niche in Nashville, and I was having trouble with it for a while because stylistically, I didn't feel like I necessarily fit in.

I definitely grew up as a small-town... I guess you could call it the 'small-town football player,' according to the stereotype. I wasn't involved in music at all.

It took me a couple years to get over the stereotype I was letting myself get caught up on, being a football player trying to start a career in music.

I don't get irrational about it, but I do have a deeply-rooted competitive spirit. Not necessarily towards other people, but towards any obstacle that I set for myself.

Within the songwriting community, there are these unwritten rules for the way that a song should be written in country music, and I think that those rules are constantly being broken over the years, and the molds change and the process is evolving.