The 50s were great because I collected stamps.

I'm not trying to be cosmic, it's just that everything's on a roll and that's how it is. The songs within the album discuss that very condition.

Boredom is a horrible thing.

Since I was a kid, I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties, Chicago blues of the Fifties, West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana.

What I lack in style and craft, I can make up for in joy and enthusiasm. I like to be around people who are at ease so I like to think the 25-year-old would find me quite an easy-going late-middle-aged hippie.

When I was a kid, I was following black soul music.

I'm not a flowerchild or anything like that... whatever it was.