My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody.

You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to, you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That's a really really good thing to learn, if you're a singer-songwriter. Don't be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one.

I don't usually read reviews.

I don't separate writing songs from poetry and short fiction. In the area where I work in my house, there's a word processor and a guitar.

By the time I wrote those first three songs for his new CD ... I wanted to push the poetics as hard as I could push them, and not decide the songs were finished until I committed them to whatever the recording format was. I went through drafts right up until I recorded every single one of them.

I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know.

Politics and music don't necessarily go hand in hand. They just do for me.