The biggest thing is to continue to do what you do. A lot of people, when they get to a certain level, start thinking about it too much and they change what they do.

I think too many people, if you are 46 you want to look 36, and if you're 36 you want to look 26. I didn't want to do that. I've earned the gray hairs. So I wanted to show that level of honesty.

When I feel like every day when I get up I'm writing songs, that's the time to make a record.

I'm going to do everything I can to keep from being mainstream.

Stay young and wild as long as you can

When you play the bars, you pay your dues. It does matter that you know those things [songs]. And the great thing for me, too, is that I draw on that stuff as influences. It's also stuff that you put in the tank that you pull from to make records.

In the digital age we're in now, with satellite radio and Pandora and stuff like that, it's not about, "I listen to this kind of music." It's about, "I listen to good music and bad music."