I'm lucky enough that people tend to agree a lot with what I say. But really if anyone in the band has a really strong feeling, it carries a lot of weight.

When Adam's House Cat broke up in 1991, which was Cooley and my band for six years, I put my entire life, heart, and soul into that thing. I mean everything. I ended up getting divorced over it, and then the band broke up and I was left with nothing. I had nothing to show for six years of my life except for a finished record that still hasn't come out. And I went through a pretty deep, dark, two-year depression after that, [which] probably resulted in some of the earlier songs that became Drive-By Trucker songs, for that matter.

I'm more interested in writing about the personal stories of people. Sometimes I don't agree with them.

If something's bugging my ass on any particular day, I'm probably going to say something about it, but I'm not going to go on a tirade.

This time, we're living in such a crazy moment in history. People still write and talk about Watergate, which was such a huge, looming backdrop when I was coming of age and when I was a kid growing up. I think we're living in one of those times right now where, in 20 years, people will be writing and talking about it.

You can be for something and still be damaged by it.

A lot of the music that I grew up loving has a really political bent to it.