I enjoy doing new tunes. It gives me a little bit to perk up, to pay a little bit more attention.

I mean if it wasn't for Earl Scruggs, guys like me wouldn't be doing what we're doing. I mean, he's changed so many people's lives, honestly. I was thinking about all the thousands of people that live in Nashville, like myself, that there's no reason a guy from New York would end up down there if it wasn't for the sound of Earl Scruggs' banjo coming over the airwaves and just changing my life.

You can’t encore the past. If I see a bright light shining out there, I want to go toward it.

Earl Scruggs wears two finger picks and a thumb pick, and by alternating them, he can play about as fast as he wants. So it's this action. You know, you couldn't move one finger that fast, but all three, it's pretty easy, and it's kind of an incredible leap.

Earl Scruggs had this thing that it wasn't just the technique or even the instrument. It was him. There was this soulful quality that came through that made you - if you're somebody like me who was, I guess, supposed to play the banjo, it made you stop in your tracks, and you couldn't do anything until you got done hearing him play, and then immediately you'd have to go try and find a banjo.

I think Earl Scruggs playing propelled bluegrass and Bill Monroe's music to the level that - where we're all still talking about it.

If you don't let things develop, it's like keeping something in a bag and not letting it out to fly