I like things that are beaten up, that have lived a little. I like things that are real. I like things that are made out of wood or string. I never feel very responsive to plastic machinery.

I've always been very interested in the visual aspect of what I do.

I like to be around things that I find inspiring.

Some people, like Leonard Cohen, write one album every 10 years, and labor over a song for five years at a time.

I don't like things to be handed to me on a plate; that means nothing. I like to go through layers of unraveling and every time I listen to something, it makes me feel something different. Now I'm aware of the conflict that's going on, but at the time I just let what was happening happen.

I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.

It's so much in me to want to keep experimenting all the time. It's just inherent. Therefore I keep reaching for instruments I don't particularly know how to play, and then I become excited. That gives me energy to want to make new things, and it forces me to hear things in new ways, which then can only help to say things in a new way.