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 don't like the way recording to digital sounds. Most of the time when I'm recording to 2-inch tape, I still have a romantic vision of how songs sounded coming out of the radio when I was younger, and how they sounded coming out of my little four-track cassette player.

If you think of the way Howlin' Wolf made records, you get the feeling there wasn't a production manager onsite, or a publicist having his say on how he should sing the songs. When you listen to his records, you feel like you're tapping into his voice.

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 learned a long time ago that fame and money is not a ticket to happiness.

I get most of my inspiration from older records and older production styles, and that ends up rearing its head in the records that I make.

From a very early age, I started to get really interested in how songs were put to tape. Not just listening to the songs, but the way the songs were recorded.