Side by side on Brad Paisley's bookshelf, you'll find the family Bible and The Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes, the Palm Beach Post reports.
"That's not a rule in our house for it to be there like that," Brad says, "but it's funny. I think that's a really good example, in a picturesque way, of who I am. And it's very telling: I try to find the humor in things if at all possible."
Writing a funny song is more difficult than writing a ballad, Brad says, because it's so difficult to get it right. "You have a gauge to some degree," he says. "The best barometer for me is who it offends. Let's not offend anybody, at least not horribly, if we can help it, and at the same time, what are we talking about and is my audience going to be on board with it? Humor has an element of truth, so I guess you have to pick who you offend. But it should always have a harmless quality to it."
Despite his sometimes edgy humor, Brad always manages to come off as a nice guy. "Maybe it's just that I'm not in the tabloids," he says. "I haven't been to rehab, haven't shot anybody and I don't have run-ins with the law, so maybe I just stay out of the headlines and for lack of anything else, that's all they can say. But I'm not a Mr. Rogers act." Even if only a few people appreciate it, Brad says he'll continue to push the humor envelope. "You got to swing away every now and then and see if you can knock one out of the park," he says.
Sounds like our kind of guy...
**Keep that knob on BOB to win your tickets to the Brad show in Grand Forks!