When they were putting oil rigs up and down the California coast, the whole issue of safe energy and the addiction to fossil fuels really came into focus.

Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.

I was raised with the blessing of being involved with peace and social justice, and the environmental movement. I have my parents to thank for that.

One of the things that I'm glad about, though, is that regular people can relate to me.

I would love to see a revival of what we had against the war in the '60s - we could do these teach-ins on the internet, live and split screen, and have real in-depth debate between people that are on the "other" side of issues - nuclear, gun control, whatever. We could really be having a much more democratically involved and exciting debate with people emailing their questions and having a virtual town meeting.

I'm honored when young people say they've gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around with a hat on. People don't know it's me.

I finally learned to accept that I can't make radio play blues any more than I could get Reagan out of the White House.