I don't ever view myself as a straight country act, and I don't think the straight country acts view me as a straight country act, either - but I certainly belong to them.

I love music so much, and I love musicians - I love singers. It's fun. That's what music's supposed to be. Fun.

My dad could hold a tune. He wasn't necessarily a singer, but he did love music, and he listened to it quite loud in the car.

The curse of being a songwriter is that's you're always at work. I could look out the window right now and see something that would make me want to write.

I don't think country music needs saving from anything.

I like all kinds of music. But I would rather people stop caring about lines.

I think it's OK if somebody likes my music and likes Sam Hunt's music, too. And I think if we're both selling records, it's good for everybody. I think it allows other records to get made.

I'm gonna keep making music that hopefully I think is good, and whatever comes out of that, that will be fine with me.

Anybody who has ever played in bars has played 'Keep Your Hands to Yourself.' It's a monumental piece of rock & roll. It makes you feel exactly like rock & roll is supposed to make you feel.

I grew up less than a mile from folks that lived in shacks with dirt floors. I certainly know that there are needs in this country. Not too far from your house, if you look around, people need to be helped.

Anyone who says it's so easy to write a country hit and that it's just a formula - well, try it sometime. If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it.

People who are happy with their neighborhoods in New York always say the same thing: 'It's such a neighborhood!' And that's how we feel about Carroll Gardens. We see all the same people who have been there a long time and are very friendly and welcoming to us.

Calvin is a constant reminder that I'm not always as present as I want to be. His go-to state of being is present. So I'm really grateful of that part of being his parent.

A cocktail and an oyster is an awfully good thing after a park, especially one close to water.

The more you look at great art of any kind, you'll see that there's this thread running through all of it.

My musical output has been consistently acoustic, but my taste has not. I love everything. As long as it's good, I'm in.

If you're sitting there going, 'Well, these particular genres are the only genres I like,' that's like saying, 'I only like books with this particular kind of cover.' Because that's all genre is. It's a discussion of texture.

In my mind, there's this one 'super genre,' which is the only genre that matters, and that's the super genre of good music.

The radio - this old piece of technology that's still crackingly current - gives you this communal experience in real time.

I love putting on shows. I absolutely adore it - that's why I've been doing it now for so long.

No one wants to hear me doing my best Garrison Keillor... I think that he's inimitable; he's one in a billion.

Ever since I became better acquainted with classical music, I've wanted to try my hand at longer forms, but I could never really see my way to it. And after I got divorced, all of a sudden I had a lot of pent-up energy and lots of stuff that had gone into trying to make this failing relationship work that kind of got reapplied.

To be able to rub shoulders with kids who have spent their entire lives studying the classics... that's something I need to improve my overview.

You need to put yourself in the way of the music that stood the test of time. You're doing yourself an incredible disservice not be interested in the width and breadth of it.

Having small children, you start thinking about how everything in your life revolves around doing the best you can for this little being, trying to make a good life for that person.

Hats off to musicians who just want a pure escape. I have a lot of fondness for pure escapism. I don't feel like it's irresponsible, I think sometimes you really need to take a breather.

For one, the whole concept of 'Live From Here' - writing a song every week - was like composition bootcamp.

I certainly love the bluegrass ensemble, I think it's a powerful tool, but I don't think it's more than a tool.

I play the mandolin, which people don't often expect great things from. But it has it's charms, and it's my voice. I feel like I had as little choice in the matter as I do my speaking and singing voice.

The darned thing about mandolins is they're really hard to turn up as loud as you would need to be to play with a drum set. They cease to sound like mandolins.

What makes one type of music classical and one bluegrass and one folk - these things aren't what's important.

The great musics of the world are great for very similar structural reasons: good melody, good harmony, and a balance of feminine and masculine energy.

Everyone talks about how depressing Radiohead are. I don't hear it. They've created their own universe and it is dimly lit, but it's not inherently dark.

I didn't have stage parents and sometimes I've envied people who did because I felt like, I guess, I'm compulsively worried I'm not accomplishing enough.

Since I was little, I've always put a lot of pressure on myself.

I just want the opportunity to transcend my personal boundaries and the only way you can do that is by latching on to other people's coat-tails.

My folks were and are devoted public radio fans, who started listening to 'A Prairie Home Companion' in the 1980s; Garrison and Co. were the permanent headliners of their weekends.

I think that we'll see the concept of 'genre' continue to die a slow and painful death.

The great thing about jamming is that you come in with zero preconceptions. Someone might want to play something that suggests something else to you, and the next thing you know you're on a 20-minute adventure.

Really the greatest music I've ever heard I've hated the first time I heard it. It's been abrasive at first; it's been something that challenged me in a way that I wasn't fully comfortable with.

We love music, and when it's good we flip. And we want to get to the core of why it's good.

I can't listen to music while I'm doing something else. Well, unless I'm working out. But I, like, fall off the treadmill all the time if I'm listening to something that I like too much.

My life conforms to music, not the other way around.

We don't have any genre-based allegiances.

It seems like if they'd given Bob Dylan a pen and paper in the cradle that he would've come up with a great song. I'd love to write songs like that.

When they invented the mandolin, it was as if they were trying to come up with the least efficient means of extracting noise from a piece of wood.

It's very hard to make grand, romantic gestures on a mandolin, and there are times, particularly when playing Bach, that you long for just a little more sustain. But for better or worse it's my voice, and the trade-off comes with increased intimacy. It's like you're beckoning the audience closer: 'C'mere, I've got something to tell ya.'

Presenting the American songbook as a living, breathing entity that's expanding all the time is very important.

I went through a political shift when I was nineteen or twenty. I felt a certain way, and after the shift, I felt the opposite way. And never once did someone yelling at me or making me feel stupid do anything other than reinforce the convictions I had. What did get to me was people listening to me.

I'm always excited about music, but having spent so much time in its pursuit - well, my musical life is complicated.