I respect all religions, but I'm not a deeply religious person. But I try and live life in the right way, respecting other people. I wasn't brought up in a religious way, but I believe there's something out there that looks after you.
I try to write life and not songs. People live life, and when you write life, you're going to mess around and touch somebody's heart, and they'll relate to you and what you're singing about.
I listen mostly to live music, and mostly my musical experience was playing music with other people.
When you have live music in the background, people are usually talking over it. You don't actually get to listen to live music in your space all the time.
It's been really interesting watching people's reactions to the new music, to the old music and also watching how modern young people will be standing in front of something going on like live music, and there's a camera in front of their face.
I love live music and I love to see people's faces when I'm performing.
Older people generally appreciate live music.
Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring.
Get out of your house and go see some live performance, for God's sake. There are people creating things just outside your window.
I love live performance and have huge admiration for people who can really do it. It's the same with music: I'll play a record and think that I'm not really into country or ragga. But, if it's live and the musicians are good, I'll listen to pretty much anything.
Live shows were always religion for us. We never played a show - whether it was in front of 15 people or 15,000 - where it wasn't everything we had that night.
I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs. Now, rather than trying to talk or do a costume change, I'll use those moments for myself. I listen to what other people are playing, or just rest, or dance, even though I don't know how to.
I think people need to have fun with whatever they're doing - makeup, their clothes, music, live shows - anything you don't need to take too seriously, don't take too seriously.
I'm honored when young people say they've gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around with a hat on. People don't know it's me.
One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that.
I find television, and particularly live television, very romantic: the idea that there is this small group of people, way up high, in a skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, beaming this signal out into the night.
Oddly enough, I have really bad stage fright - getting up in front of people. And I made a living going on live television.
My job is the same if I'm making a new musical or making a play for sixty-five people or doing a live television broadcast. The job is to take care of the actor; the job is to create an environment where they can excel and try to access all their attributes.
Some players don't like to speak to the media or prefer to talk on live television so people can hear for themselves what is said, in real time.
