It's true that bluegrass is a virtuosic form and asks that of its performer. Old-time music is older rawer and purer. It's less stylized. We don't solo. Well sometimes we do, but it's different it has more to do with rock-and-roll than bluegrass does.

I think it is good for people who are incarcerated or who are bound up one way or the other-people like Lily Kimball and all the prostitues of Memphis. This gal, she needs some wings, and a good song can make that happen.

Country music is the combination of African and European folk songs coming together and doing a little waltz right here in the American south. They came together at some cotillion, and somebody snuck a black person into the room, and he danced with a white lady, and music was born.

Y'all drinking whiskey is probably a gregarious act. When you're not an alcoholic it's pretty fun to drink whiskey. But when you are it's a very solo ritual. It's not gregarious at all. But vice has always informed country music and all music.

We never had a girl in the band. Why? Certainly there's some rippin' female players in our kind of music. We have no objection to it. It'd be wonderful.

I heard Pete Seeger records when I was a kid. I saw Bob Dylan when I was about 12. The first song I ever learned to play was a song by Phil Ochs.

Like anybody else of my era, I listened to a whole lot of Michael Jackson. I guess I was probably inspired by the way he danced, and the way he sang, and his image.