“If I learned to play guitar it was so that I would have something to sing to, if I learned to write a song it was so that I would have something to sing. So the gut feeling you’re talking about comes from singing and communicating the lyrics and what it is that we feel.”

The first thing I think of when I think about coming to Las Vegas and playing is always Elvis; its always the first thing on my mind.

Wherever is your heart I call home.

Privilege and complacency paralyze me with fear sometimes.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be famous by anyone’s definition. I can only hope to be allowed by the audience to continue my life’s work.

Good planning avoids the need for fixing up a project that plowed ahead without thought… about potential pitfalls.

The purpose of it all is love.

There’s a lot of really inspiring music coming around the bend – we tend to believe that to sound classic or timeless is to sound vintage or retro. It’s a little bit dangerous, because you’ll really miss a chance to make your mark as a generation.

The mole can’t live in your dollhouse.

My advice to new artists is to embrace a broader concept of timelessness than vintage or retro.

I tried to connect my singing voice to my guitar an’ my guitar to my singing voice. Like the two was talking to one another.

I always thought the good thing about the guitar was that they didn’t teach it in school.

I mean, the sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there.

I tried when I was 13, when my grandparents gave me an acoustic guitar, and I tried for a year. It hurt so much to play. I mean, the fingertips hurt so much, I gave up.

Everything that came later… the roots are all there in the first album.

A guitar is just theoretically built wrong. Each string is an interval of fourths, and then the B string is off. Theoretically, that’s not right, all the strings should be off.

A lot of people said to me, ‘Enough with the guest vocalists for a while. We want to hear the Mexican play the guitar!’

But the guitar, when you think about it, is the most versatile, really. I mean you can pick it up and take it with you wherever you go.