There's no grand excellence to it. In my experience it was just almost the gulaggy boringness of it that'll kill you. You're just in this murk. And you're with other humans, but you lose all your human skills and it's just like you're in this plastic bag and you can't quite connect with people. You lose your ability to transmit electricity or something, and to receive it.

I tried to have more than one emotion on the record.

People get strange about whether you've written your own songs, which seems really stupid considering that, especially in Country Music, it's about oral tradition and passing things on and the songs weren't meant to be played by one person and then forgotten.

If you want to be noticed as a drop of water, why would you move to the ocean?

I think I have a lot of empathy for animals and nature in general. Those things just make me comfortable. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, around a lot of animals. I feel for them.

I remember people would talk about Country Music like it was this sexist, lame thing. Well, no, because Dolly Parton is writing songs and playing her guitar and producing. She's doing it all and she's got hits on the radio.

I think I've kind of been mistaken for somebody who's trying to be a spokesperson for animal rights, and the fact is I'm not qualified to be a spokesperson. I am passionate about it, but I'm not trying to make other people do what I do.