While he may look ticked off, Keith is actually having a real good time. He is perennially ranked among country's elite touring artists, thanks to a knack for writing hit songs and a platinum streak at retail.

That streak continued with his new album, "Honkytonk University," which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 as Keith prepared to launch his Big Throwdown II summer tour last month in Charlotte, N.C. The tour comes to Riverbend Music Center on Sunday - and "Honkytonk University" has just wrapped up a six-week run at No. 1 on the country album chart. Keith's latest single, "As Good As I Once Was" is No. 2 on the country singles chart.

If Keith is portrayed - inaccurately, he says - as a gun-waving right-winger, largely because of his support for U.S. troops, he can handle it. "It comes with a lot of pain, being that guy, but it's nothing like serving over there," he says. "That's real pain."

Here he weighs in on honky-tonks, the record business and the fine art of being Toby Keith:

Billboard: How autobiographical is the title cut of your new album, "Honkytonk University"?

Keith: Dead on. 100 percent.

Billboard: Including the part about your grandma's honky-tonk?

Keith: Yeah, she had one down on the Arkansas-Oklahoma line, in Fort Smith, Ark., right across the river from Oklahoma. That's the first place I was ever exposed to a band when I was a child.

Billboard: I bet that was a rowdy place, getting those Arkansans and Oklahomans together.

Keith: She was like Miss Kitty; she ran a pretty tight place. It was the last of a dying breed of what you called supper clubs, where the front end was a tavern - longnecks, jukebox and pool - and then you went into the back for fine dining and a nice band that played swing music and current country and a little bit of old rock 'n' roll.

Billboard: That was a pretty good musical education, wasn't it?

Keith: Absolutely. I told that high-school teacher I'd never need any calculus.

Billboard: I guess football and music were your two main interests, then, growing up.

Keith: By the time I was in high school I'd already been into football for seven or eight years. It was starting to jade me a little bit. I could see a future from my dad in the oil fields. I've always been a survivor and a very resourceful person, so that's what I did: I started gravitating toward my strengths, writing songs and singing and playing music. I knew football wasn't going to get me anywhere, but I had to go play some semi-pro just to get it out of my system.

Billboard: When was the first time you got paid to play a guitar and sing?

Keith: First time I ever got paid for it was at a wedding, right out of high school. We played a wedding and somebody gave us $1,000, and that's where the band came up with the name Easy Money. After we went to the taverns, it was $35 a man a night, plus your beer. I never did go to college - went straight out of high school to work with my dad in the oil fields. I went to Honky Tonk U.

Billboard: How did you end up in Nashville?

Keith: I never did really go there, they sort of came to me. I went (to Nashville) one time for a meeting with (then Capitol Nashville president) Jimmy Bowen. He's pretty legendary in that town. I came in with a bunch of songs, and I found out later he was on the golf course and didn't have time to take a meeting. He put one of his flunkies on me, and the guy kind of spanked me and sent me home. Harold Shedd (the producer of Alabama and others) heard a tape of me and flew into Oklahoma and heard me play live and signed me to Mercury. I still tease Bowen and say, "You had your chance 25 million records ago."

Billboard: So basically you got signed off the noise you were making in Oklahoma?

Keith: It was regional. We were doing real well in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, that little circuit there. There were seven or eight bands that rotated through there, including a band called Canyon that was really hot, out of Texas.

A band called Stallion, a band called Lariat that turned into Ricochet. Little Texas was in that loop, Ricky Lynn Gregg's band was in that loop. Jim Collins, the writer, he had a band that was hot. Part of the Lonestar boys were mixtures, I think, of Southern Wind and Canyon. It was a great training ground. I don't even think they have that quality of circuit anymore.
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