My fans have written me such kind emails. My management at Daptone helped me heal, too. I'm in a good place.

Play with me and you play with fire.

Youth. The fact that, in the mid-'90s, guys like Lee Fields gave me and all these young people the chance to do backup. I was in my 30s, but some of those guys were still teenagers. Others were 22 and 23 - babies, all of them.

I often call Daptone the Motown and Stax of today. But in some ways it's different. At Motown, a lot of the musicians didn't get recognized, music got stolen, and people didn't get paid. Or the label would just throw them a pinch of money for their songs. That is one thing we're not doing. Anything anyone writes here, we get a percentage.

As for meat, I'm not going to become vegetarian. I'm telling you that right now. I want me a steak. I want me a pork chop. I want me a lamb chop, even a piece of duck every once in awhile. We used to have ham and salami, all that crazy stuff.

When I'm on tour, I don't see these spots as much as I'd like. I'm just in, I perform, then I'm out. I hope to spend years sightseeing, then more years after that.

When I got sick this past summer, I couldn't - my mind just wasn't on music. The rest of the band understood. But once October came, I felt ready to get back again.