Country music star Meghan Patrick was the latest guest on The Fred Minnick Show, and a lot of her fans may not know she’s an avid hunter.

The Canadian performer, who’s recent album Wild as Me came out last year and was Juno Canadian Country Album of the Year, is more than just a singer and songwriter – she has hunted everything from wild turkey to bear. It’s a country lifestyle that sometimes plays out through the music she makes, right down to the whiskey she drinks onstage (and on other occasions).

But sometimes she faces Internet backlash about her love of hunting and game meat (which her freezer is currently filled with). On the show, she dishes on how she handles the criticism and how she tries to spin it in a positive way.

“I have always gotten a lot of backlash about hunting on the internet and stuff, and honestly it’s probably nine times out of ten more that people are just not educated,” Patrick told Fred on the show. “They just don’t understand what hunting is really about. A lot of times, if I can, I try to have a conversation with people, you know if they say something mean I try and say, ‘Hey, you know, this is why I do this’ and I try and explain an educate people as best as I can. Because a lot of times I have those conversations and they go ‘Oh wow, I didn’t realize that.’”

She went on to say that when she hunts, it’s never for trophies – the animals are appreciated. Much of the bear meat from her bear hunt in Manitoba, for instance, was donated to a local village – and it was in a part of Canada where black bears are overpopulated, making the hunt a part of local conservation.

There still has been criticism, she said, adding, “At the end of the day, I just had to accept I cannot please everybody and that’s OK. If they don’t like me or my music or my lifestyle, they can go buy a Taylor Swift record.”

Patrick also offers a colorful account of her torrid affair with Jack Daniel’s during her college years, and why today she can’t drink it. (She said at this point she’d rather drink “horse piss” – now, that’s a bitter breakup.)

To hear more from Meghan Patrick on these topics and others, download the full podcast.