Every man's work whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else is always a portrait of himself.

I call architecture frozen music.

I was always very grateful to 'em and am grateful to 'em now. I went back a couple of years ago and did their 20th anniversary show. But the longer I stayed on Hee Haw the worse things got for me musically.

Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight dinner soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays I go Fridays.

I use the music to vent and a lot of the stuff that I am writing about or was writing about contained a lot of anger and anxiety stress and depression so that's how the album came out so dark.

My hope is that out of all the anger and seeming hostility that we hear in some of today's music will come some sort of coalition that will become politically involved.

After my second-to-last record 'The Greatest' I had gone on tour for a while and I didn't play an instrument for about five years. And I got kind of - it's not self-esteem or whatever or anger toward myself - but disappointed in myself that I hadn't been challenging myself to learn musically.

As a culture I see us as presently deprived of subtleties. The music is loud the anger is elevated sex seems lacking in sweetness and privacy.

I don't play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration patience anger. Music is an extension of my soul.

For me music is a vehicle to bring our pain to the surface getting it back to that humble and tender spot where with luck it can lose its anger and become compassion again.