In a business where image is paramount and the music consequential, Charlie stands steadfast in his refusal to play the game on anyone's terms but his own. "There’s a lot of people out there that they don’t want someone who produces it all, writes it all, and who has a big say in his career. I will not go to media training and I'll say exactly what’s on my mind. Most labels don’t want to screw with someone like that. That’s not fun for them. They’d much rather have someone, they tell them what songs to record, tell them what clothes to wear, they send them to media school, media school tells them not to talk about abortion, not to talk about politics, not to talk about the death penalty, not to talk about anything like that. That’s a lot easier for a record company to deal with."

"I realized what I could give up and what I had to keep. What I had to keep was total control over my music which I produced, the record label did not get to submit songs to me for the singles. I said ‘Hey, when you all hear the music tell me if you can mesh with it or not, and if not I’ll take it to Sugar Hill or somewhere else like that. But now, once the music is there, if they ask me to visit a radio station or something like that, I’m going in to promote my music, a vision I have, so I feel like that’s not compromising. If I was going in there to promote something they created for me, that would be a compromise. You definitely pick your battles and that for me was making the exact record you want to make and after that it’s really hard to compromise yourself too much after that. There’s a lot of shows I refuse to do, a lot of bills I refuse to be on, I don’t feel it’s for the right reason."

It isn't just his image that is contradictory, intentionally, his music is creatively indefinable and ambiguous. "Its kind of like the exploration of the kind of things that confuse me about my life, and that confused me growing up, like religion." he reflects " When I was growing up I thought ‘God, I can’t wait to leave this town, I think I’ll move to New York, I’ll move to L.A., I’m going to be a bohemian, I’m going to be another Kerouac’, and then you get to the point where I just love being at home and ranching. My music's like sitting on a psychiatrist’s couch or something like that, it’s confessing or saying what you’re struggling with in your life. When I get an idea for a song I see a person or a situation that I find very curious or very perplexing and that’s what I write about, not ‘Man, this would be a great hit song’ If it really gives me something to think about then I write about it and try to work through it in my head and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it usually makes people think."  

In a world where music allows the listener to escape their inner struggles, more often than not Charlie's offerings will make you face them head on. Case in point: "The Wedding Song", Charlie's duet with Natalie Maines (from his recent Columbia/Lucky Dog release, 'Step Right up'). "Rather than writing a song that is black and white, its more like painting a picture, in that one person will listen to "The Wedding Song" and say ‘Man that is so beautiful, these people, neither one of them were really the type to ever leave town, they accept these things about themselves' and other people will think 'These people are really trapped, they're just staying here.' It’s like Picasso or an impressionist, ‘who you are’ is what you take away from it"

Although rich with intriguing anecdotes and true life sagas, you'll find a couple of radio-friendly NRBQ covers tucked in the mix, admittedly with intent. " I thought it would be cool to change the way country radio thinks by recording an NRBQ song, by some to be the greatest garage band in the world, to the style of the Jackson Browne record  "Redneck Friend". Its doing great on radio right now and on the charts so I kind of feel like I’ve done the end-around on them and its like, here’s something you would never had have played a few years ago and they are playing it now and its giving commerciality a new definition rather than you becoming commercial." 

Venturing outside of the success he's acquired in his home state of Texas, Charlie's careful to consciously draw lines around his career growth. "When you’re doing music that’s really personal, about you and your struggles and the things that you think about, its really hard when that becomes a product." he shares. "Because once you make that record you start writing about other things and its like ‘Man’ the record company and the public they are all used to a certain kind of thing and I’m struggling with something right now, I’m talking about marriage or talking about kids, whatever is in your life at the time. You’d rather have that smaller core of following rather than that huge one – my wife’s success just scares me, if someone says to me "Hey you can have the same success as the Dixie Chicks" I think ‘Man I respectfully decline’ because I am not equipped to have that kind of pressure on me."

Somehow, during this conversation, the public image is replaced with that of a man who's confident in not only his talents and abilities, but his limitations. He's clear in his own mind about not only where he's been and where he's at, but where he wants to be in the future. And just where is that? "In the exact place I am right now except with two kids." he confides "With a career that’s still building at this kind of pace, a very acceptable pace. I don’t want to be on the cover of every magazine tomorrow and sell 2 million records, I just want it to grow at a nice even pace over the next few years, like in the song, have a couple of kids, and be able to spend some time on the ranch, some time on the road. I like where I am right now"

"I just feel like once you’re at the roulette table and you bet, you’ve won four or five times in a row, its’ just like ‘Man, just get up and walk away’"