You're born and then you're on your own, you start having relationships, you're developing relationships to the world and your wider community, and then disappointing things happen.

I definitely enjoy working within different contexts, with different collaborators, and in different locations. I need to keep feeding myself as an artist by working with different people. I see continuing with that. I've also enjoyed getting to explore different kinds of music and instruments in the last couple of years.

I do notice that my songs fit all over the map, even in terms of the colloquialisms in them. The songs come out with their references intact, almost unheeded by me. It's like they existed somehow before they met me with their relationship to the tradition, and then they just end up coming through me at that moment because of my relationship to some certain kind of music that I've listened to in my life. I know that sounds a little bit woooey.

Every form of communication is for the purpose of feeling, experiencing, sharing. Everyone has their own intense journey through life, and you don't want to do it all alone. It's really meaningful to be able to share with people. Whether it's your political beliefs, or what goes on for you emotionally, or keeping track of history.

Sometimes I joke around that if I weren't a musician, I would be a power lifter. I don't think people expect it from me because I'm little.

The music goes into people in a totally different way than words. There's air, there's the sound of words, there's touch, there's music. All of those things have a really distinct way of meeting and entering people's bodies and souls. It's the most beautiful part about humans; that we make music.

You can choose not to be a performing musician. You can choose to just be a recording artist. But then you run into the problem of trying to earn a living and balancing the time that you spend working on your creative efforts to just getting the bills paid. You can go off the grid and live in a cabin and make whatever art you want and also provide all the sustenance you need and not interact with anybody else.