(Continued From Part One)

For the next record, have you been writing with any specific direction?
You know what, I’m not. I really don’t know yet what I want to do. It’s funny because the first two albums, I knew exactly what I was going for. I think they’re similar, but I don’t think they’re exactly the same. This time, I’m just kind of scratching my head. I’ve written a bunch of songs for it, and the songs that I write will obviously dictate the direction of it, but I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted the last two to be. I’m kind of confused on this one. That’s something that will hopefully come to me one day [laughs].

I really like a lot of the stuff that I’ve written for the album. I’d say off the cuff I’ve got about five or six [songs] that I’m real, real excited about, but I want to have 10 or 12 that I’m real, real excited about. The next half that I write or find from somebody else will probably dictate the exact direction of where I’m going to go with it.

Looking back at the person you were making when your first album compared to today, do you see a huge difference?
Yeah, I’m not a nutjob anymore [laughs]. I have changed, obviously. For one thing, I’m four or five years older than when I made my first album. You do a lot of growing from the time you’re 23 to 28. I’ve obviously grown up a lot. I became a dad over that period of time. I’ve learned how to be a husband -- a lot of things have changed in my life for the better. That obviously makes a difference in how you write songs and do the artist thing. That will play a factor into what we’re doing.

You're on the road with Eric Church this fall. How are you feeling about that?
I’ve been lucky, as you know, to be on a lot of major tours. I’m as excited about this one as I have been for any of them. Eric and I, our albums are completely different, but I think our ideas on what country music is and should be are pretty much in line with each other; we just present it in a different way. I think our fans are a lot of the same people. We’ve become buddies over the past couple of years. It’s always fun to go out and tour with people that you get along with and like to be around. It should be a lot of fun.

You've been on some dream tours… Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts and now Eric. How does that make you feel knowing that all of these A-list artists are wanting you to be on their tours?
[laughs] It makes me feel good. Obviously it’s exciting for us, but it makes me feel good that these people respect what I do and think that we can go out there and help them a little bit. It’s exciting anytime we get to do it. Hopefully we get to do it some more. Hopefully down the road we won’t have to do it anymore, in the same breath. We’re discussing going out and doing something on our own next year, so we’ll see if it comes together.

Have you noticed a change in your own live shows after being involved with these huge shows and seeing how the other artists handle their performances?
I think you subconsciously take ideas from every tour you do. You might not do exactly the same thing with lighting or staging, but you take different ideas and how to put a show together. From our very first tour to the last one with Blake, I’ve learned something on every one of them. We’ve also added quite a bit of production this year, which we’ve never had. It has made things a lot more fun onstage, and I think it makes it a lot more fun for the audience when there’s different lighting and staging and stuff like that. It’s been fun to watch it grow over the years, from us learning more to us having the ability to fill a tractor-trailer of cool stuff to use on stage. It’s been fun to see it.

What's life like these days at the Moore household with two toddlers?
It’s wild! It’s a lot of fun. Ella and Kennedy have gotten to the point where they kind of play together, which is pretty cute. It’s pretty neat to see them interact with each other. Ella is great with her. We didn’t really know how she was going to react because she’s a bit of a pistol, but she’s doing good with Kennedy. Kennedy is just about to start walking. She’s standing up on her own now. It’s crazy.

It’s funny because Ella is tiny. She is really small. Kennedy is pretty big. She’s considered tall by the doctors … I don’t know how the hell that happened! There’s not a huge difference in their size, which is kind of funny because Ella is 2 ½ and Kennedy is nine-months. I’m sure it will change pretty soon!

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