When you're a musician and you break new ground it resonates into the common consciousness.

Anyone who writes knows that ultimately the majority of your time is spent alone in a room with a piano or a guitar, no matter what the project is.

Music is a spiritual expression of what's in your heart. Music as a way of getting rich is a pretty new thing, and I often wonder if the mega-bucks glitzy atmosphere is making the quality of music suffer. You have to work really hard to get around that and remember why you're in it in the first place: because you have to be. It's like an addiction. You can't go a day without picking up your guitar. To me, the only commercial goals that are really valid are, 'Boy, I wish I didn't have to go to work. I wish I could do this all the time.'

My life was a complete catatrophe. I was very, very sick from drugs and alcohol.

There's so much excitement around the Phish tours, and if it stopped feeling that way, it would ruin everything we've done for seventeen years.

Things have gone beyond my wildest expectations and dreams, and I feel like I've been given so many blessings in my life, between my friendship with the guys in the band, our wonderful audience, being able to play this music, and then my family.

The biggest sacrifice to me is to not be in an atmosphere where I can keep writing and moving forward.