Johnny Jewel is how people were maybe two hundred years ago. Back then, when people got up in the morning, they knew what they had to do to get through the day - there were 100% less decisions. Nowadays, we have to decide what we want to buy in grocery stores, what job to take, what work to do. But not Johnny. For him, it's all right there - it's a freer state, and that's what my music is looking for... ... To understand Johnny, you should think of William Blake. He was the same kinda guy.

You know, there is something I'm looking for when I'm writing. But I couldn't tell you what that is.

I write a lot of more instrumental music than I do vocal music. It's because I come out of a background of playing piano and then playing sax for a number of years. I kind of got into rock backwards. A lot of guys go into rock and then get sick of it and then go into something else. I came the other way, so I've always just had a lot more stuff lying around.

Boogie! I hate boogie, God, I mean, not the Chicago boogie like Willie Dixon or Howlin' Wolf, but all those awful white bands.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

All the Frank O'Hara types seem to have very little sound stuff going... it's so chatty or something.

I don't think Marquee Moon was so good, y'know? Just another record. First records everybody likes a lot.