Quotes

[on working with the 'Unity Group'] As for the political aspect of being a musician, of playing in a way that is not built on the conventional rise and fall of the culture, that's a whole other chapter in itself. We're all trying our best to illuminate what we believe in, and it's quite different that this sort of 'American Idol' culture that we live in. So on one level the political aspect is there. But I wouldn't say it's just that tune. I'd say it's all of it.

[on his new recording, 2014] I'm always trying to find 'connections' between things. That art is the juxtaposition of a lot of things that seem unrelated but add up to something recognizable. When I came up with 'Kin', it was thinking about that connection thing in a more linear way: the way we imagine our grandparents, our great-grandparents and then some cavemen somewhere. It goes the other way too. We are the ancestors of people who are going to be here 400 years from now. We tend to think we're the end of it all. But it's actually going to keep going.

If you come to my house, you won't see a wall of trophies or things like that. I'm sort of 'on to the next thing' all the time. Part of that is from having played and toured so much. You can have the best night of your life playing in Portland, and you're playing in Vancouver tomorrow. People in Vancouver don't care about how you played in Portland. It doesn't matter if you played the best you ever played last night - now it's tonight!