“I’ve been doing music for a long time. It’s always been a part of my life,” says country hip-hop artist Colt Ford. “When I was young, I was always beating on the dashboard. I started playing the drum set when I was six or seven. I guess that’s why I never gravitated towards singing. The beat and the rhythm always intrigued me.”

“I was pretty much a normal kid. I played sports, hunted and fished. My parents are country folks. My dad picked cotton and didn’t have indoor plumbing until he was eighteen years old. I was raised with those values and morals, hard work, God, family and friends. Nobody owes you anything, you’ve got to go out and earn it. You’re not entitled to anything. I was certainly blessed. I had a wonderful, wonderful childhood.”

Growing up in Athens, Georgia, Colt’s musical style was influenced by the varied sounds of the Southern music culture, but his career started with hip-hop. He worked with Jermaine Dupri and wrote for the group Kriss-Kross. “Hip-hop, then, wasn’t what it is today; it was more about fun and parties. It wasn’t ugly to women and bad language, which is kind of what’s going on now.. It was always easy for me to write hip-hop stuff. I wasn’t writing about anything I knew about, it was like writing a movie script. Something I’d always been able to do. At the end of the day, though, I was never really being me.”

Combining his love of both urban and rural music seemed like a natural progression, but Colt was tentative, “When I started doing the country thing, I wasn’t sure what would come out. A few years ago, my wife asked me to do something country for the PBR (Professional Bull Riders.) I just never really thought it was time to do that; it never really occurred to me that I could make a record the way I do it, be country the way I was raised. I just wasn’t sure how people would respond. I kinda did it for her. People liked it. PBR liked it. I just said, ‘Well, we’ll give it a shot’ and I just started working on it. Literally, this whole record was written and recorded in ten days.”

“It’s been overwhelming. Every now and then you get somebody that says they don’t like it, but 99% of the people have loved it. People are calling me the ‘new Hank, Jr.’ I don’t know if that’s the case or not, but that’s a big compliment for somebody to say that. It’s just real; this is really what I am and who I am. I don’t wear $500 blue jeans and $1000 boots like a lot of the country artists do today. I wear Wrangler’s and shop at Wal-Mart. I’m just a regular ole’ country boy.”

“My favorite thing about this record is that very seldom would you find a record that a six, seven, or eight year old would like, their sixteen-year-old brother would like and their 35-year-old mom and dad and their grandparents would like,” Colt says of his new album, ‘Ride Through the Country.’ “Honestly, what I’ve found is that I’ve got all those people liking what I do. That’s really cool to me that I have a record that they like and can listen to together. I don’t think you see that very much in music anymore.”

“Writing has always been something I was into no matter what, I’ve always excelled in that. I suck at math, but I’ve always been able to write. It’s always translated that way; I’ve always been able to say something that I wrote down easier than I can say it talking. That’s something I’ve always done.”

Though Colt toured for a time as a professional golfer, musical touring is where his heart lies, “Music is life to me.. I think that’s what it is, that’s the way I write music, about life and real stories and what I’ve seen. I try to talk about stuff that folks can identify with. If I think my fans are going to have to look up a word to know what it means, then I’m not going to write it in a song. If the word is ‘ain’t’ then that’s just what the word is. I write it the way I say it, the way I walk and talk. That’s just what I’m trying to do.”

“I’ve been lucky and I’m blessed and I’m thankful for it. My mom’s told me, since I was little, that God doesn’t give you anything he doesn’t intend for you to use. I feel like he gave me that ability and I’m trying to use it. I had a little girl at a show that came to Nashville to visit her grandmother on Spring break. She was fifteen years old and had just lost her father and one of my songs meant a lot to her. I got to meet her and she broke down and was crying. I was blown away that my song could help her and evoke that kind of emotion in her. That’s the kind of thing that is truly special to me.”

“I always use the analogy that America loves a funny, fat, white dude and that’s kinda what I am, I’m just a goofy white country boy. I like to have fun; I want to see people with smiles on their faces. That’s the way it comes across. I’m real and honest. I’m not up there pretending to be something I’m not. When they meet me now, it don’t matter where or when they see me, I’m just the same ole’ regular guy. I think that’s what people relate to. A guy gets on stage and does music and women and girls just like that, even from a fat boy like me. The cool thing is, the guys really like it, guys don’t get all giddy to see Kenny Chesney. But me, they realize I’m just a regular guy. I’m just kind of a man of the people, so to speak. That’s what I want to be. I don’t want to be anything other than that.”

Colt Ford’s toe tapping, beat-driven, plain talking musical persona is only one facet of his personality, he is also a loving family man to his wife and two children. “My daughter is fourteen and she’s into myspace, cell phones and all that kind of stuff. I’m just like any other dad; it drives me crazy a little bit. My little boy, he doesn’t care anything about ‘Colt Ford,’ he just wants to throw a baseball, kick a football. My wife is so awesome.. She allows me to go out and play music. She really takes care of things and that’s a real blessing. She’s there for support. It’s tough being out on the road with the kids in school, they can’t go out with me, and she’s got to stay home. It’s tough on my relationship with the kids and it’s tough with her and me because I have to be gone a lot. I’m lucky; she’s a strong woman.”

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be; I think Abraham Lincoln said that. I think that’s true. You can find something good in everything. If you choose to focus on the bad, it’s not hard to find. But you can find something good in everything. You can’t be afraid to look for it. We have options. We can change what we want to do, what we want to see and what we want to think. Just open your eyes up; life isn’t as hard as people want to make it out to be.”