[I want to convey] that there is hope?that we're a world that is in turmoil but there is hope. I'm always amazed at how much love is in people's hearts even when they disagree about things. I think it's important for people to come together in music. It reminds me of the [Margaret Mead] saying, 'Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world.' I think that's really true. |
I feel like it's more important for me to try and say what I want to say than to have the perfect rhyme. In my order or priority, I'd much rather say what I want to say. But, I also feel like, it intuitively has to make sense. It has to feel good. The sound of it has to feel good. |
I just always want a new producer. I'm going to have a new producer on the next one. Because I'm the same person, and I feel like, I know I'm going to bring to it a certain sensibility that's me, and I want to have something different coming out on each album. |
I spent some time this summer at a camp on Lake Michigan. I had the chorus of the song. A lot of the images were from watching the rain fall on Lake Michigan. |
I worked with the elderly. I found that from the experience of listening to elderly people talk about their lives, you get a different sense about what happens over the course of a person's life. I grew up in a family where there's a real ethic about making your life mean something; do something in your life that helps other people. |
I'm pretty social so it's hard for me to find solitude, but I need to have solitude to write. |
So, once I get writing I really try and put five to eight hours a day in my room with a guitar to really try and come up with stuff that feels interesting enough to me to keep it. |
The Ark is a great community that supports folk music. ...Ann Arbor reminded me of home. It reminded me of Maine. |
When you do have songs where you're going to say something, some kind of statement about cultural or social stuff, that in general people love it. People love to be challenged in that way. |