For every show that we do, anyone that rides public transit, bikes, or walk, we offer them a $5 voucher at the merch table. It gets people using the infrastructure in the area. Hopefully, the venues where we play will lobby city council and say, we need bike paths, sidewalk repair. That stuff affects so many people's lives.

I felt like I was cheating myself of those communities and cheating the audience because I wasn't able to know them. That's what the bikes did, without me having to put any arbitrary philosophy on what it was supposed to be. It enabled human connection.

I'm in a position I never imagined I'd be in as a musician. Bob Dylan built an audience through recording and live shows. The opportunities for an artist today are totally different.

I have a lot of intention behind what I put out there. The reason all this stuff I do works together, the environmental and social, collaborating with ballet companies to score a show, the bike tour - all of that stuff comes together through community building with music.

But that would put me on a path that would make me totally divergent from who I am. I don't have to go through the heartache many other people go through, of figuring out what makes them "wealthy." I know what brings me joy.

When we cut off access to certain parts of our cities to people on bikes or in wheelchairs, we're not only doing economic damage, we're also doing culture damage. New York is the culture capital of the world because people are running into each other on the street all the time. They are forced to engage in creativity and problem-solving.

I'm interested in questions my son asks me, like, "Why do animals fight? Why do you have to leave us to go on the road?" Everything he asks gets me thinking.