I wanted to sing songs that my voice was comfortable with.

I read the Life magazine articles about free love and free dope in California. At age 20 I drove to Los Angeles.

It's a losing proposition, but one you can't refuse. It's the politics of contraband, it's the smuggler's blues.

People don't care how you feel. You need to paint pictures, you need to tell stories. That's what people want. They want to be entertained. Then all of the other stuff kind of filters across as part of the whole thing.

I think it would be nice to sell 15 million albums as a solo artist. I'd have to deal with all the repercussions of that, but that wouldn't be too bad.

I grew up in Detroit. So my mother always loved big band music.

We set out to become a band for our time. But sometimes if you do a good-enough job, you become a band for all time.