I do find that most fans are aware of my writing career and have known my real name for many years.

A friend of mine pointed out to me, "Why do you separate your writing and your music?" I got (writers) Rick Moody and Jonathan Ames to do the first one, and it just kind of gathered steam; then NPR picked it up. It is a nice way for me to marry both sides of my career, a move that's probably culminated in me dropping the name John Wesley Harding.

The people you might lose are the people who look at a marquee and are like, "Oh, John Wesley Harding is playing. I went to see him play 20 years ago." But if they see Wesley Stace, they might make absolutely no link between those two things at all.

There's nothing I like more than a writer who can sing, or a musician who has a book out.

Aloha Earth, this is Elvis calling. You'll find me in the big house now.

When I was writing this new bunch of songs, I was singing a lot lower, because they were more intimate in a way. I had to come up with a way to frame the music that was intimate.

Novels may have taken care of the emotional business for me, which has allowed music to be more emotional for me.