When you write a song about a place, you are writing a song about a place that might be in a hundred years, or a place that has been, or that was - in your imagination. I think that also embodies the American spirit. You are looking for what you can call "a place."

I'm trying to think about stuff like that: How can a show not be just a whining guy with a guitar.

Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind.

I'd have to think about it, but I was listening to this Johnny Cash song today that Tom Waits wrote for him - I think that's the story. For some reason it's a thing that sticks in my brain. He's describing this scene where he sees all these almost biblical images happening kind of in this burrow where this biblical train runs through this yard.

I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.

A lot of people are like, "How are you going to re-do it?" I'm not worried about what people are going to say because you know people are gonna be like, "It doesn't sound like this... It sounds like this." I'm just going to make music that I know I'm supposed to make.

I just understand... I mean this may sound kind of bigheaded, bullheaded, or cumbersome, but when people say they've had a really deep experience with the record, like it caused a divorce or it like...I've gotten all these stories.