I think I'm getting better at being verbal. I used to have a lot of problems with it. I had my own little demons that I was fighting, and I used the banjo as an escape.

I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface.

My most powerful memory was hearing Earl Scruggs on 'The Beverly Hillbillies' as a 5 or 6 year old. That sound just blew me away, shook my head up.

I think the Flecktones are a mixture of acoustic and electronic music with a lot of roots in folk and bluegrass as well as funk and jazz.

And then Earl Scruggs comes along and transforms the banjo into a virtuosic modern instrument. For the first time, the Southern banjo style becomes the identity of the banjo, and everything from before is wiped off of people's consciousness by the power of that explosion.

I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.

I first heard the banjo on the Beverly Hillbillies, and from then on I was banjo-conscious. But I didn't actually get one until my grandfather gave me one, almost by mistake. He knew I was playing a little bit of guitar. He saw a banjo at a flea market and bought it. I took it home with me and just never put it down. I was fifteen.