I hope that books don't go the way of albums and CD, large format albums, and physical product.

[My grandfather -a miner] had black lung, and he didn't talk about it much. It's almost like a combat veteran. But he witnessed some horrific things.

Those songs [from church], I think, shaped to some degree how I would evolve as a writer, pentameter of songs, the melodies of those kind of hillbilly hymns - I used to refer to them - because they were not Southern gospel as much as they were passed down from Scottish Welsh Protestant hymnals.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

Quality is timeless: It will clearly define itself. And so I make reference to and acknowledge things that I feel have been dismissed, trying to restate those musical and cultural elements clearly and vehemently

I always knew about as a kid, knew that that particular injury at [my grandfather's] finger had been caused in that disaster that killed his brother-in-law, my grandmother's brother. And he never talked about his own brother's death to me. My mother told me about that and told me about the impact on her family. And that's part of what you hear in the first verse of "Miner's Prayer."

I'll never quit playing country music, or at least acknowledging it, always, as the cornerstone of what I am.