I think Alison Krauss is one of the most amazing singers ever. As a songwriter - this is gonna sound cheesy - I love Randy Newman. And my mom passed on a love of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. At one point I was so into the Indigo Girls, just like I was so into the Dixie Chicks, those female harmonies.
My manager and I were broke for about three years together. That was the worst time of our lives and the best time of our lives. You have nothing, and it also is this great blank canvas of how to be inspired and how to dream up your whole life out of nothing.
My grandpa was a big cowboy in his values and the way he lived his life. For our family, the ranch represented our family time when we got to drive down through all that desert farmland and Grandpa would wake us up at 5 A.M. to feed the horses if we wanted to earn the right to ride them later. I always had so much fun.
I think life gives you lemons, and the thing that I'm working on doing is not watering it down, not putting sugar in it. Just drink it straight. The more you can take life head on... it's gonna make you a better person, and then you have nothing left to be afraid of. And what an awesome way to live.
I would like to be known for honest, relatable writing and stories that that are real. There's just this shift I think is happening in a lot of society right now where being your most real self, however embarrassing or vulnerable or weird that is, is the coolest. I feel like that's what Lena Dunham's about and Amy Schumer's about.
Fans give me yellow things, and I think now what's really fun is, when anyone sees yellow now, they'll think of me. Now it's kind of like this self-fulfilling prophecy: Yellow things come to me.
That part, that internal dialogue that has a lot of ups and downs and darks and lights and stuff - that, I think, is where music comes from. I think the face that you put on when you're talking to people and making small talk, I don't think that's where music comes from.
