The song [The White Trash Song] was not a put down of [ my country cousins ], but a celebration. I wrote that early on, as a teenager.

If I wasn't so lazy, or if I had a roadie, I'd have a line of guitars on stage. I'd have a lap steel and a nylon string up there, but who wants to keep up with all that?

I heard black people sing and the emotion was overwhelming to me. The power of that with all the built in sorrow and joy was just overwhelming to me as a little kid. It was the real deal.

I grew up wanting a guitar, my family was very poor. When I was fourteen my mother bought me a Gibson ES 125 thin body. That was a bunch of money in those days - $125.00.

I was such a heavy drinker I was going to die at age 37. Not to mention the drugs. I'm glad to be sober, I haven't missed a thing. A lot of people never get the chance to come back.

There are a lot of guys kind of on the bubble that can either be that sort who turn into journeyman kind of guys that will find a new spot or guys that can make a claim to be in one place for a long time. You can name a lot of names this year, an unusual number. And I think that most of them will be OK.

I was born and grew up in the Deep South, and I must say it wasn't easy for me. I always marched to a drummer, I had different views about politics and religion and I had them relatively young.