Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release.

There'll come a writing phase where you have to defend the time, unplug the phone and put in the hours to get it done.

It's hard to find a way forward. When you're 18 it happens in huge chunks every day, but after 20 years, growth is much more costly.

Certain things in life are more important than the usual crap that everyone strives for.

I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to my audience that I'm as bald as a billiard ball!

I typically will work on a lyric in a three-ring binder. On the right side, I'll write the lyric, and on the left side, I put in alternate things...and things that might be alternates or improvements. I'll turn the page and do it again. I'll turn the page and do it again, or incorporate the improvements. Eventually, I end up with some material, and often it needs to be ordered.