If a guy came up and said 'we got a polka band and we're going to play polkas next Saturday night' I'd play polkas.

I make my living writing songs and, you know, I'm not a show biz kind of guy.

That's kinda what happened to me: I listened to jazz, country, R&B, rock 'n' roll. And when I sat down to write a song, I had all these influences comin' through.

I sing and play guitar, but songwriting is how I pay my rent. And so I didn't really need a lot of publicity to get people to record the songs.

What my whole object was is not to really sell records. I was trying to sell songs.

There's a couple of songs of my own I wished I'd have never put out, that, you know, I'd like to burn. But with the advent of digital and computer, nothing goes away any more, you know.

When they say, 'Well, you gotta do some interviews on TV,' I went, 'Oh, I like to watch TV, but I don't wanna be on it.'

I was a late bloomer in the music business.

People have heard my music, but all my famous songs were made famous by somebody else... But that was my goal.

Working in bars back then, in the '50s, to get a job you had to play all kinds of music. There'd be customers come in and yell jazz tunes at you and yell rock 'n' roll tunes at you and polkas and rhythm and blues and country music.

As the years went by and technology came in, I used a lot of technology.

My music's gotten much more famous than me.

I tried to play anything people would hire me to play, because I was a musician.

When you get successful, the money comes in and pretty soon you've got to hire an accountant, you've got to get up early, and then you've got a day job.

Makin' records is one art form and playin' live is another. It's like the difference between makin' a movie and doin' theatre.

Widespread Panic discovered a couple of my songs and started doin' 'em on the gigs. They'd take a song and expand it and everybody plays a long time and people really like that. But I made my living as a songwriter so I try to get to singin' and get it over with.

I try and manufacture recordings to sound spontaneous. Then, some things are spontaneous.

I generally, you know, I don't - I don't really scat. I'm - I'm basically a songwriter so you need a little lyrics that rhyme and stuff.

That's the nice thing about songwriting: You don't have to punch a clock or be in a specific place to do it. There's really a lot of freedom to it.

The only albums that I have personally named were 'number 5,' 'number 8' and 'number 10.'

I basically make my living writing songs, so I've been able to go around in my trailer. If I got tired of a place, I could move on and roam around. It's a nice environment for writing songs, as opposed to sitting at a recording studio console all day.

On the 'Escondido' album, I think it took us a month to make that album.

I'm a background person.

I'd like to have the fortune, but I don't care too much about the fame.