My advice is: if you've got to be miserable to write great music, then drive a truck.

I put on music and I'm washing my car. And I put on music if you have somebody and you're trying to make love. You put that on in the background and you go, maybe this will be romantic.

The '50s was a pretty wonderful time for people, it was hopeful.

I keep things pretty simple.

There was a misconception about me when I started off because I had my hair greased up and I have some vague resemblance to the hillbilly gene pool that Elvis came from. People would say, 'You want to be Elvis' and I would say, 'No'.

I never set out to write a certain kind of song, I just play my guitar and see if I catch something.

I don't know what people think in making record is like. But basically, I got a bunch of spaghetti and spaghetti sauce, and the whole band was staying at my house and we had a ball.