I just want to write songs in my little corner. And I still love music, I've not been worn down by cynicism.

Those minutes that I'm on stage are the best! Being there and looking at the crowd and seeing their faces, hearing them sing the positive words from the songs.

It's the way I like to work for these kinds of songs [like "Peace Trail"]. It was the right time of the month; everything was looking good.

And, we have no such thing as a budget anymore. Our manager freaks when we show him the bill. We're lavish to the bone, but all our money goes back into the product.

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble.

Especially when you've got your own mail route, day after day, it was an easy place to write. It was like going to a library with no books. You're afforded to just go do your job, and you don't really even have to think about it. You know you're on the right street and you're at the right house, and you're putting the mail in the right box. That's where I wrote a lot of the early songs, walking on the mail route.