HANK WILLIAMS JR.

Being a Williams is not easy in this business because the bar is set very high to achieve success. Daddy set some high standards for all of us.

I'm going to try to make happy songs or some political songs, like 'A Country Boy Can Survive' - something people can get excited about.

You better mean what you're singing or you need to get out of this business. That's where I'm really lucky because they know I mean what I'm singing or I ain't gonna sing it.

I am and always have been a football guy. My relationship with 'Monday Night Football' lasted 21 years, which is unprecedented for any theme song to be on the air that long.

Music lives in cycles. One day, one type of music is on top and the next year another genre is on top. Either the fans love you or they jump from one artist to another.

Many people don't realize that June Carter Cash was my godmother. She and mother were very tight.

The bottom line is, between Sonny Osborne and Earl Scruggs, I better know how to play banjo. I had the greatest teachers in the world.

I always ask any of the artists that open up if they know 'Family Tradition', since that's my last song in the set, and if they do, I normally ask them to come on out and take a verse and have fun. When that song is done, I am gone.

I like metal detecting, collecting Civil War artifacts, fishing, hunting, cigars, Labradors, the outdoor life, my baseball game, football.

I only do about 25 shows a year and I do not really do tours.

Growing up on Franklin Road in Nashville, I had everyone from Johnny Cash to Fats Domino swinging by my house to talk with my mom about my dad. So I had some pretty diverse influences, and I think that shows in my music.

But, I enjoy music from lots of people. And you also have to also remember that I grew up in a household where people like Fats Domino, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Earl Scruggs, and so many others were at mama's house. So, I heard everything growing up.

I guarantee you there's a bunch of the twentysomethings that don't know that, don't know I play banjo and bluegrass.

But I can say that the business has changed drastically since I started at 8 years old. Everything from the way you tour to how you make a record and how you release the music.

But my whole career, I have done things my way and the way that I wanted.

I love what Eric Church is doing. He and I are friends, and he opened some shows for us a few years ago and I would fly him home on the jet. He is a good one.

I love five-string banjo. On an electric guitar, let's say a two-hour show, it starts getting heavy right across the neck and shoulders. And I like to be able to flip it off and grab the fiddle, and that's just the way I do it.

I more or less said I was going to try to make an existence off my daddy's royalties or I'm going to make it on my own. Daddy is a legend and he don't need me to keep him alive.

Most all of my awards are at the Country Music Hall of Fame. You know we had the longest running exhibit in the Hall of Fame history with Family Tradition. More people went to see Daddy's stuff and all the things I have collected over the years than any other exhibit.

Me and a few of my rowdy friends stole the wheels and tires off a brand-new limited-edition Lincoln Mark III that my manager, Merle Kilgore, had just bought. We left it up on blocks and then we sold his own wheels and tires back to him the next day.

You've got to want to put out good music. You've got to give the people their money's worth.

Listen, I am who I am. I have always been true to who I am and that is why the fans support me.

Listen, ladies and gentlemen. America is still a country of choices and options. And I have a lot of them.

When Mother put me out on stage at eight years old, everyone wanted me to be just like Daddy.

I love this country and I am very vocal about my thoughts and beliefs. America is the greatest nation on the planet!