Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.

I can't relate to the process of just disappearing and writing a record, all at the same time, followed by the sort of drudgery of going out on tour and trying to recreate the record, playing the same 12 songs every night.

You can build up expectations for a song before you record it, and then it's like nothing's good enough in the studio.

The earth almost looks like it's packed down and dense from so many feet treading over it.

Most records, you build from the drums and bass up. This one, we started with the vocals in Nashville and recorded them live with just the guitars and tried to make that complete and lovely-sounding without any adornment at all. I really wanted to get something with the vocal that I've never gotten before Armchair Apocrypha.

My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.

The real drag is trying to fly from country to country, day of show, with all your gear. You get hassled all the time. It's hard trying to keep it together.