I started with the chorus of that song, kind of like a fun bouncy thing to play, and then one of the lines popped up: 'I got things to do today, people to see, things to say.' I wrote about a dozen verses for it, but no song needs to be that long unless you're Bob Dylan. So when we recorded it I started to tear it down to some of the lines I thought were the funniest.

Of course when you are a kid you listen to what your parents had around. A lot of gospel, jazz. Now when I started to listen to music on my own it was around the time of the birth of rock and roll. Shortly thereafter I started to get into more blues and more traditional rootsy American music.

With the bass it's another thing. I don't need to use alternate thumb-picking as much. Even though Jack says he loves it. My thought is that it might irritate him somewhat.

I don't care if my lettuce has DDT on it, just as long as it's crisp.

We do a wealth of stuff (live), drawing from over the years.

My dad was president of the Finlandia Foundation for a number of years and there was a period of time when he tried to get me in. I'm glad I finally got in.

My dad is from Ironwood and the last time I was in Marquette was in 1995 when my dad was still alive. Dad would have loved this. Even though my family is long gone from this area it still feels like home.