I live out of cans a lot. But I try to indulge only in healthy canned food.

I was very fortunate in having David Fincher, the director come to me. Now I've seen the finished product, I feel that every bit of the nine months we spent on the film was worth it.

I think actors are at the mercy of the opportunities presented to them. So you kind of have to wait for them to choose you. My music is insular - I can choose that.

I quit eating red meat a long time ago. I'm a vegetarian, but not by a moral issue or any kind of stand. I still eat dairy. And I quit eating sugar about the same time I quit eating red meat, but I eat fruit.

But that is a valid, continuing service that that music - which is, in some cases, 80 or 90 years old - is rendering. And proving its own timelessness.

I heard more of the stories from my mother and my granny and my aunts that would describe what they had known that he didn't often talk about. I remember seeing [grandfather] as a child. He was working in a mine that was fairly close to their home there in Betsy Lane, Ky., and it was so close in proximity that he wouldn't clean up or shower there. He would just drive back home. And I remember one time seeing him come in and it was like seeing an alien person show up because he was still covered in coal dust and soot, and it had a profound impact on me.

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