Toby Keith
Toby Keith
Toby Keith Covel, known professionally as Toby Keith, is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. Keith released his first four studio albums—1993's Toby Keith, 1994's Boomtown, 1996's Blue Moon and 1997's Dream Walkin', plus a Greatest Hits package for various divisions of Mercury Records before leaving Mercury in 1998. These albums all earned Gold or higher certification, and produced several chart singles, including his debut "Should've Been a Cowboy", which topped the country charts and was...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCountry Singer
Date of Birth8 July 1961
CityClinton, OK
CountryUnited States of America
My wife got upset, but I usually take those things, when people say stuff about me like that, and turn them into gold. So when the person who said that goes to her Wal-Mart and she's looking for a garden hose and looks over and sees the album, she'll know what a great idea it was to call me white trash with money.
James made every record ... that established my career.
You just try to give them a little piece of the United States, and tell them that we all support them and love them, no matter what they hear.
I'm influenced by all kinds of music. I have a very diverse iPod. You never know if I've got it on shuffle. You never know what you are going to hear next. I like all genres.
I play golf with my shirttail out. I own a golf course because it's very, very close to my house, and I don't want to drive 45 minutes to the north side of Oklahoma City to play golf every day. I have race horses 'cause I love horses and it's my hobby.
We turned what is virtually a glorified independent label into one of the powerhouse labels in the town.
We try to buy as much American-made shirts as we can and stuff to sell. It's very difficult to cover every base as much as our country has been saturated with foreign products.
It's like pulling teeth to get me to do photo shoots. And I don't mind doing interviews if they're by phone, but I hate to go sit down and have to meet somebody somewhere, you know what I mean.
I always vote for the guy I think can get it done. And it ain't nobody's business who I vote for, but I voted for Clinton twice. And that just blows people's minds when they hear that.
When you've got an extra gear in your head where that's all you do, you've constantly got a little radar up. ... And when something hits that strikes that beeper, hits that radar, it's like my song skills kick right in and go, 'Oh, OK, there's a song in that.' And then I start trying to figure it out.
I'm into hip-hop, rap, country, blues, gospel, old school, new school... whatever... pop. If it's really good, I like it. I don't have to be told what to listen to. If I like it and it's good, I'll listen to it.
In the years that I've seen concerts, when I've paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs I'd want to hear. So whether it's stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff I've been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.
Writing is not work. In fact, there's nothing better. Writing is something that if the music business went completely away tomorrow - radio stations quit existing and music quit being popular and it was old hat - I would still write songs.
I write all year long, and at the end of the year I pull these forty or fifty things out and say, 'Which of these things do I want to record?'