When I do older folk songs, I'm not doing them because they're old. I have no interest in reviving or continuing a tradition. I'm just doing them because they're great songs.

If I pick up a fiddle, I don't compose on it, so much as I just play whatever.

If I said who I was influenced by, it would be really weird and pretentious because it would be people who have nothing to do with what I do. From a listening perspective, there's just something in their playing that I'm inspired by.

I'm not somebody that has an encyclopedic knowledge of ballads and could sit around a fire and sing songs for three hours. I basically only know the songs that I've taken on and reworked and recorded.

Reading books is fantastic. I didn't do it until ten years ago. It's great.

I was listening to this record by Paul Desmond called First Place Again. It's incredibly gorgeous. There is nothing better that you would want to get from music than you get from that record.

I like to carry around extremely pretentious books, and I don't know if I can read them, but if I hold them near me, it imbues me with a sense of powerful intelligence.