Pretty much any given day, barring some major distraction, I get melodies coming to me. Lyrics don't come quite as easily. So I've been inventing little projects and challenges to sort of kick my ass with the lyrics.

The first notes I still play when I start a sound check are classical. Those are my roots.

Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.

I still play solo shows. And some of those shows are still some of the best, most gratifying shows.

I'm not a home-studio guy. I spend a lot of time working by myself developing songs, but I really need some other counterpart to help me pull it all together, because you go nuts working if I had to finish an entire project all within my own head.

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.

I didn't have the patience for the research, or anything like that. I just like how it sets the imagination off. It's just an area that's very fertile for great words. Great metaphors, potentially.