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.

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

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.

Guitar comes more out of its limitations for me, like putting it in a weird tuning and then just go places.

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.

There are some people who do great stuff singing and playing fiddle at the same time and doing that kind of arrangement. But I think [I don't do that] partially because I'm still a loner on the guitar and banjo.

The whole thing of singing on my own has been accidental and random. I sang a huge amount as a kid, and I was a boy soprano. I didn't do that much classical music; I did a little bit. I had a lovely voice. And then when my voice dropped, I didn't worry about it consciously because I wasn't that invested in my singing at the time.