Musicians exist independent of any of the marketing terms or the categorization.

I wrote "Miner's Prayer" after [grandfather] died. I'd gone back to his funeral, and he died in 1979. And I came back to California, and I think a couple of weeks after that funeral wrote that song thinking about him, his life.

Quality is timeless: It will clearly define itself.

The congregation that I was raised in was one that sang and a non-instrumental fashion. It was all a cappella singing, and so that had a major influence on me.

Country music originates with the colloquial, rural aspects of white America. It's really, truly, rural white America's blues.

I don't regret any of the musical decisions I have made.

I'm really proud of it. To me, it's a movie about character behavior and the pecking order of the pack, as well as the central character's massive survival guilt.