“I started off really when I was a teenager. I had a—and I still have it—a big scar on my forehead from when I ran through a glass door when I was little. And I was always self-conscious, so when I started singing in high school it kinda bothered me,” Jackson said. “It was bigger and bolder then; I guess it’s kinda worn down over the years. I first started wearing a hat when I was about 17, my old brown cowboy hat. That’s the hat I wore to Nashville when I came.”
The singer did say that he was inspired to wear a cowboy hat by artists that he grew up listening to.
“I wanted to wear a hat because I felt like a lot of the artists that I grew up loving wore hats. Hank Williams. And Haggard wore one more of his life,” Alan told GQ. “It always seemed like it made sense to me. I grew up a cowboy fan, watching Bonanza and Gunsmoke and The Rifleman when I was a little boy, and I always loved them guys in hats.”
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