Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music.

I don't go into any album with a concept or a deliberate direction. It's more letting the best music that really appeals to me at the time, the best songs that I find after many months and years of search and sifting through my collection, and asking radio people and journalists. It's really an ongoing search that's as much daunting as it is somewhat exciting.

I don't need any drug to show me Heaven And I sure know how to spend plenty of time cleaning Hell But I'm missin' that feeling of falling.

My career is based on the slow build of an audience based on putting on a good show live and putting out a record every couple of years. I was already doing really well in terms of my goals, to keep my fans coming back.

Nobody went out to pasture, and a lot of people are doing their best work. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Sting are at the top of their game. I mean, Tony Bennett is the coolest guy I ever met! We have to figure out how to break out of this age ghetto.

I thought I had to live that partying lifestyle in order to be authentic, but in fact if you keep it up too long, all you're going to be is sloppy or dead.

I just want to be as good a person as I can be.