When I was young, it was sort of built to intimidate. Even on this very local level in this very small church in this small town, it still held that sort of - held you in the palm of its darkness.

I've had an experience through music that has touched almost every part of me. It educated me in ways that I didn't get educated in school. So we try to lay on a bit of that, through being funny, being serious, playing hard.

Yeah, I had gay friends. The first thing I realized was that everybody's different, and it becomes obvious that all of the gay stereotypes are ridiculous.

And at the time, for one of the few times in my life I didn't have a band, I just had myself and the guitar, so I was going to have to do something with just my voice, just the guitar and just my songs that was going to move someone enough to give me a shot. So I wrote songs that were very lyrically alive and lyrically dense. And they were unique, but it really came out of the motivation to - or I understood it was - I was going to have to make my mark that way.

You may not be able to hit all the notes. That's OK. You may not have the clearest tone. You may not have the greatest range. But if you can inhabit your song, you can communicate.

The audiences are there as a result of my history with the band but also as a result of my being able to reach people with a tune.

Music doesn't tell you where to go. It says, go find your own place. That's what it told me.