Our [former] governor [Pat McCrory] was supposed to be a moderate, but he found himself beholden to people who have much more draconian ideas. I think he assumed this stuff flew under the radar.

It's easy to follow national politics and weigh in on social media, but if I'm tweeting stuff about Chatham County, no one cares.

The possibility of disaster remains horrific to me. Like when you know everything's about to go wrong in a way that's not controllable or knowable.

There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.

If my songs are being listened to between any other songs, that is awesome, and I'm glad people are getting something out of them. We go to countries like Germany, where I can't imagine that all of my fans are engaging with the lyrics first and foremost. I think they're catching a vibe, a feeling. I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back and telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.

I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun.

Giving up and doing something else (nursing, for me) was exactly what eventually led me to making music that other people wanted to hear.