I tend to support and get behind issues instead of candidates, because of the whole ‘Super Bowl’ generalization of our world – You’re on this side, I’m on that side; you’re a Republican, I’m a Democrat; you’re country music, I’m rock music.
I’d love to claim the title of ‘songwriter’ or ‘intellectual,’ but the truth is that anything that I ever learned how to do in conjunction with music was purely so that I would have a platform to sing from.
In life, I’m most inspired by entertaining people and driven by the desire to do it by such a powerful force that I think it influences everything I do.
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.
I tend to feel really protective of songs, and if they aren’t sitting well in a record, I’ll pull them tight to my chest until I feel it’s a better time.
Writing is sort of putting a puzzle together halfway. Then, performing it has always been the completion of it. Once that happens, I’m feeling verbally communal with other people. It’s out there and I feel so much better about it.
I feel like a lot of the singer-songwriters in my genre and in my generation have gotten more and more snooty about covering other people’s songs. They believe that creativity is the intersect of expression.
I have vocal trouble from time to time associated with sleep or wine! Or from sleeping in a bunk the size of a coffin and breathing in bus air conditioning all day.
But now, with the last two years of touring and being on the road, I’ve learned that a live show should never sound like a record; a record should sound like a live show.
