Blake Shelton covers the new issue of Men’s Journal, and surprisingly enough, I didn’t hate his interview. I get the feeling that Blake is aiming for a Channing Tatum-like vibe in this interview – and I mean that as a compliment to Channing, who gives a great interview. Channing is down-home, a good old boy who is comfortable both in LA and in the South. Blake stresses over and over that LA is not his town, though, and that he’s more at home in Oklahoma, on his ranch. He refuses to become a California resident even though he would kind of like a prescription for pot too. Anyway, you can read the full piece here, and here are some highlights:

He lives in California for 6 months a year: “I like California,” he says, “but I’m dyed-in-the-wool Oklahoma. I see a deer in L.A., and everybody’s standing around it taking pictures. Back home, that’s the enemy!… I’ve driven in L.A. probably three times. I’m a slug in L.A. I literally leave the show, go to the house, and shut the gate. The only people’s houses that I’ve been to in L.A. are [‘Voice’ star] Adam Levine’s, [‘Voice’ star] Christina Aguilera’s, [‘Voice’ executive producer] Mark Burnett’s, and Michael Bublé’s.”

Mentoring contestants on The Voice: “Yeah, I spoil them pretty bad. But, s–t, man, this business is hard. And I’ve been real lucky.”

His new drink: Vodka and club soda in a red Solo cup, with a couple of drops of stevia as a sweetener. He prefers diet cherry 7-Up, but Lambert encouraged him to switch a couple of weeks ago. “She says it’s healthier,” he shrugs.

On his drinking: On the show and in real life, Shelton’s drinking is a running joke; he’s happiest when he’s got a buzz on, but he often plays it up for comedic effect. (“He likes to make people think he’s drunk, but I’ve never seen that boy drunk in my life,” his mom says.) Shelton says he’s just trying to do his part. “I get frustrated with Adam because, to me, rock stars are supposed to be drunk all the time. But he’s very healthy. He takes care of himself. And it drives me crazy, because I want him to be more like me. Drunk all the time.”

He & Adam Levine are a lot alike: “But here’s the difference,” Shelton says. “I can change a flat.”

Signing on to The Voice: When the producers of ‘The Voice’ first approached Shelton’s agent, after seeing him do some funny guest appearances on another reality competition and some awards shows, Shelton turned them down flat. He only relented when he heard Christina Aguilera had signed on. “I was like, ‘F–k, who am I to be the holdout?'” he says. “I’m the country guy nobody’s ever heard of.” He credits his breakout success to the fact that you don’t usually see good old boys like him in network TV’s New York- and L.A.-centric worlds. “Sometimes I think they don’t know who all of us are in the middle,” he says. “If there’s one thing special about me, it’s that I seem familiar. People feel like I live next door.”

Life lessons from dad: A few weeks after he left home and moved to Nashville, Shelton got a letter in the mail from his dad. “It was like five pages thick,” he recalls. “The first couple lines said, ‘Hey, I didn’t get a chance to tell you some things that I wanted to tell you about entering the world,’ and as soon as I read that, I folded it back up.” He had a great relationship with his dad, but he was a headstrong teenager and wanted to make it on his own. “I didn’t want to hear it,” he says. “I was 17. I didn’t want to be told what to do.” Shelton tossed the letter aside and forgot about it, and eventually lost it. But as he got older, he thought about it a lot, and how he’d do anything to be able to read it. Then last year, his father died, after a long battle with lung disease. “It got to the point where he was choking to death,” Shelton says. “One day the doctor came in, and Dad said, ‘Can you make me go to sleep and not wake up?’ So they took him off the ventilator and gave him some morphine for pain. They said it could be a couple of days. But he went to sleep and died in like three or four hours.”

Finding the letter a few days later: Shelton was going through some of his things when he found a relic from his Nashville days. “It was one of those cans you get at Christmas with four different types of popcorn. And if I did one thing right when I was 17, it was saving that letter inside that can.” Shelton sat down to read the letter for the first time. A lot of it was practical, nuts-and-bolts stuff: how to save money, how credit cards work. “But there was also a lot of s–t about how to treat people,” he says, “how to get respect, how to look people in the eye, and how to shake their hand – basically, how to be a man in the world.” As Shelton read the letter, full of things his dad never would have said in person, he was floored. “It was like I was having a conversation with him I never had.”

His first marriage: “Looking back, it was just the wrong thing all around… I married my buddy.”

On Miranda Lambert: “I don’t give her too much s–t,” he says, smiling. “That’s like poking a bear.” But he says he was never intimidated by Lambert, despite her fiery rep. “She’s as lovable as can be – until you cross her. She’ll go from zero to 100 real quick. If Miranda has an inkling you’re saying something hardass to her, it’s gonna be a problem.” Recently, Shelton says, she got into it at a Nashville bar with someone he’ll only identify as “the lead singer of a very popular rock band.” The guy was drunk and said something out of line to Lambert, and she threw a drink on him. Shelton quickly got in between them, but he insists no actual punches were thrown. “I’m a lover,” he says, “not a fighter.”

They live in Johnston County, Oklahoma, near a small town called Tishomingo: It’s 45 minutes from Shelton’s hometown. “It’s pretty sleepy,” Shelton says. “There’s the Dollar General, on Main Street, and a Family Dollar. And if you can’t find what you need there, you’re f–ked – the closest Walmart is in Madill, 15 miles away.”

Their hot dates: A hot date means throwing a cooler in the back of the pickup and driving around the property clearing brush and singing to the radio, or watching ‘Flip This House’ (if she’s got the remote) or ‘The Golden Girls’ (if he does), or else having dinner at the all-you-can-eat rib buffet and dessert at Dairy Queen. On a really big weekend, they’ll take the boat out on Lake Texoma. “When we get home, we like to be home,” Shelton says. “We turn the TV to one of those music channels, Willie’s Place or whatever, make drinks, and just talk s–t about people.”

[From Men’s Journal]

As I said, it’s a lengthy piece and I really wanted to include the part about the letter his dad had written to him, just because that really moved me. He also talks about how much he loves animals – and how much he loves to hunt, of course – and that Miranda keeps rescuing dogs and giving them girly names. Apparently, their latest dog is named Sasha Fierce, and Blake notes “She worships Beyoncé.” I’m not sure if the “she” is Miranda or the dog. Or both!

Photos courtesy of WENN.