For me the greatest pop music was music of liberation: Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Public Enemy, the Clash, the Sex Pistols. Those were pop groups that liberated an enormous amount of people to be who they are.

Fundamentally, people pay you as a musician to hear you sing and play. I give myself two or three minutes (for commentary) out of a three-hour show, and that feels about right. ~ USA Today, 10/4/04

The songs I write don't have particular beginnings and they don't have endings.The camera focuses in and then out.

I like to write about people whose souls are in danger, who are at risk. ~ NY Times, 4/25/05

People deserve better. They deserve truth. They deserve honesty. The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

In every song on this record, somebody's in some spiritual struggle between the worst of themselves and the best of themselves, and everybody comes out in a slightly different place. That thread runs through the record, and it's what gives the record its grounding in the spirit. ~ NYTimes 4/25/05

I'm once again in search of different and exciting ways of voicing the material. If you've written good songs, sturdy songs, you find you've just scratched the surface. ~ Canadian Press, 7/05

I was 24 when I wrote "We ain't that young anymore." ~ USA Today, 2/28/08

1 | 2 | 3 | 4