I love the sound of Elmore James, the sound early guitarists like him got just by using minimal means.

I always prefer other people's interpretations over my own, so I'm not very quick to make explicit what exactly a song or record is about.

When you work on a record for three years, it's a great sense of relief when it is finally out in the world. It just feels good.

When I first started making music, it was learning other peoples songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.

I remember when I was 5 or 6 years old, gospel music felt familiar, like I had heard it in the womb or something. A lot of those old gospel songs still give me that feeling, that it's older than time and there's actually music that can tap into a universal subconscious, or whatever word you want to put on it.

I've worked with just as many talented women as I have talented men, and I feel fortunate enough to have that great balance.

If I'm writing... even a piece of a song... I write it down. If it still resonates six months down the line, a year, even five, those are the ones you put in your bag and you take to the studio. You come to realize, the ones that don't make it, they were only meant to live for that moment in your notebook or on the 4-track-and plenty of songs never get any farther than the 4-track.