What would we do if we didn't try? We have to try.

The most important thing you can do as a performer is to be yourself, or be an onstage version of yourself. If youre not being true to yourself, and somebody likes that other version of you, youre kind of stuck.

When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.

I don't feel like I'm on a mission. I'm trying to play music that I like to play and like to listen to.

Everybody's career is different. In this new age of being able to talk to the whole world at once, the possibilities are staggering, really, to be able to do things yourself. But I've always enjoyed my relationship with the record company.

It's true that I did get the girl, but then my grandfather always said, Even a blind chicken finds a few grains of corn now and then.

Look around and you will see this world is full of creeps like me.