I know who Michael Jackson is, I know who Prince is, I know the Isley Brothers, all that. Still, I got my own thing going with this music.

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.

My pops put me on to Jay-Z and Kanye, and my discoveries would be like Future and Kendrick Lamar. I turned my pops on to Kendrick, Young Thug. I feel my mom made me play the Isley Brothers and real, real old music.

As a young man on the streets of Derry, I saw Ian Paisley as an immortal opponent of everything to do with equality, justice, fairness, and respect for Irishness.