Sometimes something will come along, and it feels easy and sometimes you'll get 85 percent there on a song and the last 15 percent will elude you for three years.

When people come together around music, there's something ancient going on. It has to come from a genuine place and that's part of the challenge. You have to cultivate that authenticity everyday.

My music is so often like a lullaby I write to myself to make sense of things I can't tie together, or things I've lost, or things I'll never have.

I like that gathering moment where the music is about to begin, that moment right there. It's like jumping out of an airplane. It's that moment when the lights go out and then you're in it.

But I'm not worried about seeking out the approval of others - that high school thing of joining the club.

It was a hard time for me to have a pure moment, to be present, to be here.

I would say, if you're a musician then you probably have some capacity and some intuition. You've got to trust that intuition and be true to what compels you. There will be a lot of things along the way that will try to remove you from that, and if you do, then I think you are diminished. If you stay with it, then you have something that's real.