For the Dixie Chicks and other haters, there's been a whole lot of Toby Keith not to like. The big, strappin' Oklahoman has cranked out six albums over the past six years -- five of which debuted at No. 1 or 2 on the Billboard Top 200 -- and another one is due in September.

Not only that, next week fans can see him on the big screen in "Beer for My Horses," a film he co-wrote. That's all in addition to being one of country music's most consistent summer road warriors.

Where's he find the time?

"We've cut it down," he says of the touring. "We only do 60 cities. That leaves me 300 days a year to do something else" -- just to put a grin on the face of all the folks who like him and irritate all the folks who don't.

Of the forthcoming album, Keith is pretty low-key -- "That's second nature to me. Whatever I wrote last year is what I recorded this year" -- but he's particularly excited about one ballad that he says, "is different than anything I've ever done, that kind of has a pop quality to it."

The movie seems to be more his baby at the moment. In 2005, he played against type as a country star down on his luck in "Broken Bridges." In "Beer for My Horses," named for one of his songs with Willie Nelson, he plays a small-town deputy sheriff trying to break up a crystal meth ring and win the heart of an old flame. It's a mix of action, romance and wacky comedy, the last part courtesy of comedian Rodney Carrington and a dog with gas.

"The whole thing's about the toast," Keith says. "When I was a kid growing up in the Southwest I worked for a rodeo company. There was an old man who had an Old West original toast: whiskey for my men, beer for my horses. If you bring the spirit of that forward and say the police force or the sheriff would ride out and get the bad guy, bring him to justice and salute the ones who helped you, that's what the title is about. So, we wanted to do the comedy to tip our hats to the old Burt Reynolds movies, and we wanted our characters to be strong and have the toast be a thread that runs through the movie."

Nelson has small cameo. The wildly outspoken Ted Nugent, whom Keith met while performing for the troops in Iraq, has a bigger part as, of all things, a mute deputy with an array of weaponry. When you're in the presence of Nugent, you know he's around.

"Oh, yeah. Ted's a whacko, man," Keith says. "I was really concerned about Hollywood meets Ted Nugent, with their extreme difference in philosophies. Everyone came away finding him charming. Ted's a good friend of mine, and Ted's not a hater. Yeah, he's got a strong agenda and he carries a gun, but he's never pulled it on anyone. He can be dangerous if you try to tread on him. But he doesn't bring the hate to the table. He's so fun, he kept everybody in stitches."

The piece of video we're not going to see from Keith is the much-anticipated global warming commercial with the Dixie Chicks, part of Al Gore's campaign to pair celebrities who don't see eye-to-eye on other issues.

Keith says he's a "right-wrong guy" not a "right-left guy" and doesn't see the reason for politics in issues such as gay marriage and global warming.

"If the world needs savin' and the polar caps are melting, shouldn't we all check in and see if we're destroying this sucker? Al Gore heard me say that and said, 'We're going to get some people on opposite ends of confrontation, like Rosie and Donald Trump and put 'em on the TV.' I said 'I'm in, but good luck gettin' them to do it.' "

The Dixie Chicks agreed, but then the conflict arose over scheduling the shoot for the commercial, so it's not happening.

The feud with the Chicks went back to Keith's post-9/11 song, "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," with the infamous line, "We'll put a boot in your ass/it's the American way." The Chicks' Natalie Maines had called the song "ignorant," and the battle raged on from there.

If Keith has a regret about the song, it's that it stands out so much among his others.

"It's amazing that I can sell 35 million albums and have 50 million spins as a writer, and one three-minute song carries more weight than all of that combined. You realize that? You know what 50 million spins as a writer compares to? Lennon, the Bee Gees and Billy Joel. I've got a 35 greatest hits in the store right now. There's one song called 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.' Every other song is predominantly non-conservative stuff. It's drinking, womanizin', 'Weed With Willie,' partyin', it's 'Whiskey Girl,' 'Who's Your Daddy' -- and 'boot in your ass' carries all that weight. You can imagine how much it meant to people who needed that song. Whether people hated it or loved it, it left its mark."

Keith still bristles at how the song painted him as a gung-ho right-winger when he's a lifelong Democrat. It also associated him with a war he never supported.

"First of all, you can't go make everyone understand what you do. Most people who talk about 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue' never even heard the song. If you read it word for word, you know what it means: Let's go out and get the people responsible for 9/11. They attacked New York, they attacked the Pentagon. They came and killed a bunch of innocent Americans. Now, two years after that song comes out, we go into Iraq. Now, all of a sudden, I'm responsible for the Iraq War. I can't go tell everybody to listen to the words and tell them I have nothing to do with the Iraq War. ... My philosophy on that is I think we need to take care of Afghanistan and get Osama bin Laden. But I'm not going to apologize for being patriotic, and wherever the troops go, I'll go there and play.

"Some people can't get past 'boot in your ass.' They think it's a war cry for every war we might get in. Ten years from now, if there's a war in Korea, there will still be folks blaming people like me."

Even though he didn't support the Iraq War, Keith did vote for George W. Bush for a second term and says, "his presidency will be better judged 40 years from now."

In the upcoming election there might be a little interest, especially within the country community, in what Toby Keith has to say.

His first reaction?

"I don't think anyone should listen to what stupid celebrities say. If someone endorsing someone is going to change the way you vote, then you're not taking advantage of your American right here. Everybody needs to educate themselves and vote the best they can."

Having said that, Keith goes on to say, "I think Obama stands the best chance for the Democratic Party since Clinton. McCain is a good solid choice, a smarter version of what we have. We probably need a change and the economy needs a change, and come Election Day, I'll have my mind made up."

Any chance he would go out and play a show for one of them?

"Hell no," he says. "I never did that for anybody."