I'm not somebody that has an encyclopedic knowledge of ballads and could sit around a fire and sing songs for three hours. I basically only know the songs that I've taken on and reworked and recorded.
When I do older folk songs, I'm not doing them because they're old. I have no interest in reviving or continuing a tradition. I'm just doing them because they're great songs.
There are some people who do great stuff singing and playing fiddle at the same time and doing that kind of arrangement. But I think [I don't do that] partially because I'm still a loner on the guitar and banjo.
I like to carry around extremely pretentious books, and I don't know if I can read them, but if I hold them near me, it imbues me with a sense of powerful intelligence.
If I said who I was influenced by, it would be really weird and pretentious because it would be people who have nothing to do with what I do. From a listening perspective, there's just something in their playing that I'm inspired by.
I was listening to this record by Paul Desmond called First Place Again. It's incredibly gorgeous. There is nothing better that you would want to get from music than you get from that record.
I am a complete jazz nerd.
I'm not really a folk singer, but I love the music and there's certain lines that will get just stuck in my head, and they seem to be stuck there for a reason, and I start singing them.
The whole thing of singing on my own has been accidental and random. I sang a huge amount as a kid, and I was a boy soprano. I didn't do that much classical music; I did a little bit. I had a lovely voice. And then when my voice dropped, I didn't worry about it consciously because I wasn't that invested in my singing at the time.
Guitar comes more out of its limitations for me, like putting it in a weird tuning and then just go places.
If I pick up a fiddle, I don't compose on it, so much as I just play whatever.
Reading books is fantastic. I didn't do it until ten years ago. It's great.
