I'm uptight in general, and it's hard for me to play in a situation where I'm not rehearsed or I feel like I'm not prepared. So it's always hard for me to come away from those and think it was the best thing I could do.

I don't think I had a specific moment when I thought, "I'm not going to play music anymore." I just played less and got involved in other things.

I had a guitar sitting around, and it just happened to have four strings on it, and I would sit around watching TV and playing it. I ended up writing bunches of songs around four strings.

The nice thing about solo is I don't have to coordinate with anyone else's schedule, since it's hard for me just to have a free 15 minutes here and there.

There's a difference between music that's original and music that's retro. A lot of bands now are kind of retro 70s whether it's Kraut-rock or... I've heard people suggest that we're kind of retro 80s.

With Fred McDowell, I just love the way he articulates the notes. I'm hardly unique in that, but there's just something about that that I love.

I was working at eBay, so I would just troll the vintage categories, find old amps and what have you. I was buying a fair amount of stuff and playing with it and then selling it back.