I dabbled in things like Howlin' Wolf, Cream and Led Zeppelin, but when I heard Son House and Robert Johnson, it blew my mind. It was something I'd been missing my whole life. That music made me discard everything else and just get down to the soul and honesty of the blues.

Punk is an attitude, not a genre, age group, or time period. What's interesting is trying to define the blues and punk in different ways. They are very close cousins.

In all my songs, I take on roles and play characters. It's a unique way to explore ideas and decisions I might not think or make in real life.

It's easy to learn but takes a lifetime to master.

If you're asking if I would be foolish enough, or insulting enough, to write about people in my life that I respect and sell it to the masses as a "break-up song," I can't imagine doing that to people I love.

Promotion and perception are synonymous twins of art marketing.

I came up from growing up with a lot of Catholic guilt, a lot of punk rock, hipster guilt in the later years where I think people have thrown a lot of things on me. Where I always felt like I'm not supposed to tell the horn section what to play or I don't want to come off egotistical.