I didn't grow up on the porch of a cabin looking out over the 90 acres that the mule was plowing with Paw-Paw playing the banjo. But I was always interested in folk music.

I guess it's a bit like not claiming your brother at school. This kind of disowning of the thing that you're most like. You want to be something cool, like Michael Jackson say, with a boom box over your shoulder and wearing leather. But you know deep down you're just a hayseed.

This indie rock stuff, I mean I like it, too - it pushes all my buttons: sex appeal, dissonance. It's emotive, disenchanted.

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.

Because music gets you high, so it makes sense to sing about what else gets you high.

It seems like everyone's listening to fiddles and banjos.

It's not very long ago that we were all singing country music. And country music is equally black as it is white and that's important to recognize.