Nashville's like any other hometown - after a while, it's stifling.

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.

There's a certain urgency that comes from the records of the early 60s before overdubbing and multitracking came into play.

Finding clothes in the South was impossible.

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 don't think I have any right to say I belong to that [Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan tradition]. I think that's something that eventually maybe you get inducted into. I'm just experimenting.

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