I have to write and play. If I became an electrician tomorrow, I'd still come home at night and write songs.

I was signed to a record label at the same time as my friend Elliot Murphy, who makes great records to this day.

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

I held four clean aces. I had youth, almost a decade of hard-core bar band experience, a good group of homegrown musicians who were attuned to my performance style and a story to tell.

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 told a story with the E Street Band that was bigger and better than I could have done on my own.

I studied other singers, so I would learn how to phrase, and learn how to breathe. And the main thing was, I learned how to inhabit my song.