Every year is filled with good times and fights and struggles and misunderstandings. All of it adds up to being in a band over a long time.

A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees.

Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.

I've always related music to those moments when someone turns you loose on something and they haven't told you how to do it.

I've seen neighborhoods that I would have never driven though because I'm riding my bike, because I'm looking for side roads, looking for maybe more hills or less hills depending if I'm exercising or not. You see a lot more, and you get the flow of a city a lot more.

The focus of my playing is the groove, and every time I find a new rhythm, I find I can write a bunch of new songs. Learning how to dance, or drum, or to swing my body in a new way is the fundamental way I find a new riff. Because when you learn to swing your body in a new way, you begin to swing with your instrument differently.

Right, those relationships with your parents and family are the hardest to figure out, and the same patterns get carried into a band situation.