I like to think about stringing songs together like a string of pearls, or a string of beads, but ultimately it has to be stuff that really works with the band, and gives a spin to the older material.
In 1974 I was trying to get my first little band together. That year marked kind of a traumatic point in my life, but I had a lot of support from friends and family and a lot of good things ended up coming out of it.
I'm not a trained musician. When folks talk about 'Well, you go to this or that' - the tenor, or the third part - I don't really know what they're talking about.
I'm even able to have kind of a little bit of a second career in dog rescue. Doesn't pay anything, but it's become a real passion for me.
As anyone who goes into dog-rescue knows, it is not a for-profit business, but the rewards are priceless for me.
I'm very influenced by landscapes, not so much the way places look as the way the names sound. In this country we've got so many cultures, and the place names - the Spanish names and the Indian names, which are so incredibly musical.
