You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly: radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it.

Most musicians, regardless of what culture they come from, can get together and agree on some stuff about music. As there is going to be a common ground.

Sometimes you have to be clever.

Truth is something you stumble into when you think you're going someplace else.

And there's a lot of that stuff with people bringing their kids, kids bringing their parents, people bringing their grandparents - I mean, it's gotten to be really stretched out now. It was never my intention to say, this is the demographics of our audience.

In my own musical existence I don't feel that being a guitar player is like the best thing on earth to be. I would rather be a balanced musician. Playing in a group, I'm tending to think more about the music and less about the guitar. That's just me getting older. I'm not interested in being a virtuoso guitar player or anything like that.

Western ears have a hard time hearing anything that isn't in four-four time. A lot of cultures experience music in five-eight, for example, five-four.