“I mean, it’s gotten to be really stretched out now. It was never my intention to say, this is the demographics of our audience.”

And for me there’s still more material than 20 lifetimes that I can use up.

I like all the kinds of music I’ve been into. I’m certainly not a purist in that I will only play country licks in a country song or blues licks in blues stuff.

If you are picking the lesser of two evils, you are still picking Evil.

If you’re able to enjoy something, to devote your life to it or a reasonable amount of time and energy, it will work out for you.

In folk music, I’ve always been fond of the fragment. The song that has one verse. And you don’t know anything about the characters, you don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re doing something important. I love that. I’m really a sucker for that kind of song.

If you think of music as a universal language, it still has some very powerful dialects.

Some things may work, but they definitely won’t work every time. Some things may work at various times.

It’s much too late to do anything about rock & roll now.

Right now, America is under the gun. It’s being tested and is being co-opted in a big way.

Now it has gotten a whole new leg. It has gotten a thing of being able to actually step in somebody’s reality and walk through it like they do, experience it the way they do, specifically.

If you assume you haven’t learned anything yet, there’s no reason your playing can’t stay dynamic all your life.

We’re like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.

To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly: radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it.

Blah, blah, blah. What’s a crime? What’s criminality? What can you do, what can’t you do, and so forth. All these things are really confusing. A lot of it is really contradictory; it doesn’t really make sense.

The bigger issue, was the whole takeover of the food industry by big corporations.

See, there’s only two theaters, man that are set up pretty groovy all around for music and for smooth stage changes, good lighting and all that – the Fillmore and The Capitol Theatre. And those are the only two in the whole country.

We were in front of a live audience and I would be acting with the man who was playing my lover, and we used those words, and the audience would titter and laugh, and make me uncomfortable doing the scenes. …

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between the jokes you can tell your friends but you can’t tell to an audience.

You’re giving the audience in real time something authentic from yourself. As an actor, my bullshit meter was going off like crazy at my first attempts to find my own rock star.

The best thing to do is to get out in front of an audience as much as you can, and learn from the experience.

Keep making music.. Keep improving your music.. If there’s no viral action on your music, you’re just not good enough. Don’t get mad at the audience, get mad at yourself. Either give up or get better.

I know doing movies is where I need to be. That’s where my audience wants to see me.

I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It’s the crisis of my life.

Behind the proscenium arch, you can’t always hear what people in the audience are saying.