I don't leave my neighborhood. I don't go anywhere. There are four blocks I live in and there are two coffee shops, one at each end of the block... so I don't do much driving... Some people would say they never see me because I don't go anywhere. I stay in the blue state of Nashville, in my bubble.

I divorce myself from listeners who aren't tolerant of humor. I did notice universally that, especially when it comes to weight, people look in the mirror and get the angle just right, tell themselves it's all right, and then they go out.

Everything I write is personal, really. Even when I'm sarcastic, it's quite personal. And on this record, from the production to the singing to the performances, I got it really honest. To the modern ear, it seems soft. When you hear it against other things, it seems vulnerable. Lyrically and musically, though, this is more subtle. And, yes, it's asking a lot of someone who's used to being hit over the head with bright neon to listen to this.

I'm older than I was, and I'm still washed-up, and I haven't changed my music one iota. It's just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

I think people use temp music quite a bit, but the people who write the temp music don't ever really learn that their music was inspiring a movie.

I could probably live in Bali the rest of my life and completely live in the sticks and have a f - king moped and make a record every couple of years and not step in public and break even like I do anyway. That's really tempting.