I think that what trips up a lot of great musicians is that they become involved with too many things that aren't where their strengths lie.

I want to be successful and I want people to hear the music and I want to make money at it, but if it isn't what you do, eventually it seems like that will cause you to not be able to do what you do. If you did that for a couple years, you would just become someone else, which is fine, I guess...but I don't want to become someone else. I want to do what I enjoy and what feels right.

Writing songs is a profession; so it's not an attempt to take things from my interactions with other people and for some reason give them to a total stranger to listen to. I find it offensive to hear other people do that.

I have a mantra that kind of explains my feelings on this subject, which is, "The past is the present is the future." When you're recording something, you're making something that will exist in the future.

I feel much more physically connected to my voice, and I like the physicality of the voice, and how the voice can physically occupy a song.

When I was a kid, I always thought that acting was going to be the way to go.

Too much emphasis is put on American roots music when people try and place me. You know, I grew up listening to punk.