You know, being able to, in my mind, have a song that you know doesn't really have any loose ends or you know, extra fat in it, so to speak.

My parents had a huge pile of records - vinyl! - that I loved, especially the Motown stuff, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding.

During a big rock show, you can flub a few things and nobody will hear it, because it gets buried under everything else.

It's just satisfying for me to be able to write kind of like a finished, nice product.

If you get raised up having everything you want and then get put out in the world and try to live your own life, you've never had anything to train you how to live.

My dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band - one of the only blues bands in Fargo, as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player, Ted Larsen.

Probably my favorite artists to listen to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder - I haven't gone back in a really long time and really listened to them - my first guitar influences. It's been awhile since I revisited that.