Pastoral Resources

We've written something like 900 songs in all.

If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

My youngest son, who is now the drummer in my band, lives in Brooklyn. My oldest son is about to move out to California, and my daughters are both out of town.

One of my side strange abilities is to hear a good song, no matter how it's being performed. Even if you get a bad performance, I can still hear that there's a good song.

We wanted to write a whole song about partying and then taking Yellow Cabs home. That's the weirdest topic we've ever thought of centering a song around.

The Wreckoning is a darker song. But the record is positive.

It's actually harder to write a fun song.

Being on the cover of a magazine with my son is the best thing ever. It took me 18 years to get my first cover, he gets one at 8 months.

I just think it's a blessing that I was able to have the gift of words and to be able to put them into music. I was given a great gift all the way around. I didn't ever have to really go out and look for songs, you know.

I try to keep my ear to the streets without sacrificing who I am as an artist. If a song needs a drum machine I'll use a drum machine. If it needs a drummer, I'll use a real drummer.

I write in all keys. I've always written in all keys. I've probably written a lot of songs in A.

There were times I used to go to parties when I was, you know, like 15-, 16-years-old, and I'd always bring my guitar, and all my friends would be like, sing one of the Smokey songs. And everything I sang was his music, and I could sound just like him.

People want to listen to a message, word from Jah. This could be passed through me or anybody. I am not a leader. Messenger. The words of the songs, not the person, is what attracts people.

In my songs, the sex is all subliminal. It's subliminal, spiritual.

His father watched him across the gulf of years and pathos which always must divide a father from his son.

If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.

There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

You hear it in your brain. Whatever makes sense. Some songs work well as quartet songs, sometimes they don't.

We played it as long as we could play it on that CD and I think it might be 50 minutes, maybe. What you have to do is play a couple of songs and then get off the stage because everything that trails it sounds stupid.

There's a certain kind of motion and pacing that our music has, and this just doesn't have that. We just kind of rushed to the conclusion of most of the songs. I just would've preferred to done them over.