The fifth member of my band is my non-profit work.

Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't.

Jazz and blues fests are everywhere now, and Americana is going strong on college radio. What I'm hearing is an appreciation of real music.

I think we have responsibilities to be active in the things we believe in, regardless of what our job is. At least in my lifetime, there has been a tremendous combining of activism and music, that came up in the era of Pete Seeger and the Weavers and Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Peter Paul & Mary.

How I measure success is getting to make another record and being able to the come back to the same town and play again cause you sold out the last time.

I learned a lot about what it was like to have to use different hotels and not use the bathrooms, which made me more determined to be an activist.

I don't think there's ever been any music quite like what we came up with.