The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I have to do it through my music.

Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone... than I ever have before.

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.

The nice thing about age is worrying less and less about what people think.

I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.

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.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.