Quotes from Dierks Bentley

Only in country music can you compare an old pickup truck and an old guitar to your wife and turn it into a love song... Thank God for country music.

I'm a member of the George Jones fan club, and I'm a member of U2's fan club.

I met Michael Jordan on a golf course! I don't even know what to say. I'm still freaked out that I met him.

I always say the best applause you can get is when you walk from backstage up to your microphone at a concert. It's also nice to walk up to the mike at an awards show, and that applause is great, too, but the best is when your fans are cheering for you.

I try to make my box as big as it can be because I never want to do the same thing twice.

Meeting my wife changed everything; it really, in the long run, made me a much better artist, a much better songwriter, a much better maker of albums.

That's what we get to do as songwriters, right? You get to explore stuff.

I listen to all types of music, but big rock records are the ones that, in the walk-up, make me wonder, 'What's this next set going to sound like?'

A typical day for me on tour is a marathon - it's like five days rolled into one.

There should be a whole book written about that one word: country. What does that mean, country? It's such a huge umbrella. I would hope that what makes it country is that it all starts with a song. The story being told in three and a half minutes that is not being told on another station.

Most of my read on America is through looking through the front windshield of a bus and hanging out with country music fans backstage.

Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene.

Whether lyrically or musically, it reaches in there and grabs your soul. That's the stuff I gravitate toward.

I never want to lose the audience's attention or break up the party, but at the same time, it would be weird not to do some new music.

It's hard to make music when you're not excited about it. So trying new things and going for new things is something that I can enjoy doing.

No, as an artist, you have to be free to explore all the corners of your heart. There are no boundaries.

Where I'm at in my relationship with my wife or my family and life in general, I feel like it all comes out in the music. Hopefully, it's always there, but in an ambiguous and abstract way and not real straightforward.

I hope fans walk away still feeling like their batteries are charged. I want fans walking away high-fiving strangers.

A Sunday morning spent reading the paper together, maybe drinking some mimosas, alone, and talking until noon. That would be pretty amazing. Married couples with kids will understand.

Country music is always changing but the Opry is always there to serve as a lighthouse for what country music really is. The past, present and future is all encompassed by not only the physical structure of the building but also the radio show.

I get nervous playing the Opry still. You take that nervous energy and channel it into being amped.

I got into rock music at thirteen, listening to Van Halen, learned how to play the electric guitar.

When I was 13, I was just figuring out how to play 'Eruption,' poorly, by Eddie Van Halen.

I think I've claimed the right to be any version of me that I want to be.