You know, albums are a funny thing. They're not like an intellectual decision. It's a collection of your kind of musings.

If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. So you're in Chicago. If you stand on the corner of Belmont and Clark, and you do that for three years, you'll pretty much have seen everybody in Chicago pass that junction.

There are people who can sit down and write a song about any given subject, and they can do it really, really well.

You know, albums are a funny thing. They're not like an intellectual decision. It's a collection of your kind of musings. Like it's a collection of your diary entries and you pick which one's gonna make the most sense together and you put out a record and you sort of live it.

I think ultimately, people are selfish in that department [blues], in a good way - the reason we're attracted to art is because it somehow reflects us. And I think, ultimately, we're a tribal people by nature. We're not individualistic. We almost like to hear that there's other people in a worse state than us. Sometimes even more than we like hearing there are people in better states than us.

I think it's very interesting, people who can't stand people who whinge and whine. It seems almost like a class issue. Because you think about who is the most positive, who's the most redemptive songwriter that's ever existed in your lifetime?

What happens to us all, I think, when we pick up a pen, is that we just become snobs.