I started learning everybody's riffs, from Donny Hathaway to Jeffrey Osborne to James Ingram. That helped me create my own style of singing.
Great melody over great riffs is, to me, the secret of it all.
Man, don't get me started on Pat Travers. That dude writes killer blues rock and roll riffs.
It's just unbelievable to me that the National Rifle Association has so much power.
Obviously, there's a part of me that takes the world of violence and death very seriously. However, when it comes to protection, or when it comes to just the skill of shooting... I've gone to the range with sniper rifles and things like that.
I've been teaching full-time for 41 years at small colleges, and I can't imagine what it would mean for me or my colleagues to be armed with handguns or rifles instead of books and a thorough knowledge of our chosen disciplines.
My manager came up with the idea of taking a Pro Tool rig out on the road to record every night and I thought it was a great idea. I felt like it would be good to record over a certain period of time and then take the best performances of that collection of recordings. It appealed to me that it wasn't going to be from just one location.
Rip Rig & Panic was a milestone for me, and I've always been really thankful that I did that when I was 16. It saved me for when I suddenly became really successful later on. So even when my head's been spinning like a banshee, my feet still feel held down to the ground.
I had a Ford F-250. It was a big ol' farm truck, but it wasn't a rig. That's about the biggest I've ever driven. That's what I drove back and forth to high school. I was a poor guy, and it was a truck that my uncle owned and let me drive because I had no money.
It taught me that Clinton's instinct to make this about your life as a citizen, rather than his as a human being, was the right answer to these things.
If any successes has come to me, it came because I insisted on thinking things through. That's all I was capable of doing in life, was thinking pretty hard about trying to get the right answer, and then acting on it. I never learned to do anything else.
The idea that everyone should slavishly work so they do something inefficiently so they keep their job - that just doesn't make any sense to me. That can't be the right answer.
God's given me so much talent, and my height doesn't define my skill set. I believe that God has given me a right arm, and for some reason, even though I'm 5'11", to be able to make the throws and make great decisions on the field and all that.
Anybody who knows me knows I'm a Marvel fanatic. I have Wolverine tatted on my right arm.
If kids remember me as a national hero, why would I mind? In fact, I'd give my right arm for that.
Countless hours of physical therapy - and the talents of the medical community - have brought me new movement in my right arm. It's fractional progress, and it took a long time, but my arm moves when I tell it to.
I got this Jesus tattoo on my wrist when I was 18 because I know that it's always going to be a part of me. When I'm playing, it's staring right back at me, saying, 'Remember where you came from.'
Performing is a profound experience, at least for me. It's not as if I sit down and play 'Fire and Rain' by myself, just to hear it again. But to offer it up... the energy that it somehow summons live takes me right back, and I do get a reconnection to the emotions.
I was walking around legally blind. Now I have 20-20 vision. I can't believe I spent so many years blurry, but I think that coincides with how I was feeling. Now I notice if people are watching me, but I also smile right back if someone waves, which helps.
My sons are precious to me and I have tried incredibly hard to strike the right balance between work and home life while being acutely aware that I haven't always got it right.
