I've never been good at rock'n'roll songs, anyway; either I'm blessed or I'm cursed, but whatever I write comes out sounding old.

I discovered the same thing Gram Parsons did, that soul music and country music are practically identical. Based off of the same chord structures, and the songs are of heartache and loss. The main connection is they both came up in church.

I know I'm never going to be a big pop star, because I'm not willing to conform.

I didn't do anything differently than what my father was doing. It's a really hard family to rebel in. I could have become an accountant. Or I could have become a Republican.

What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.

I heard Nirvana, and discovered that songs could be like poetry, but a little bit more refined: you didn't have to have 20 verses to get your point across.

As a southern man, there's two things I'm definitely not scared of: bow ties and white pants.