In a lot of ways, the way you're making your bread and butter is off people who aren't necessarily who you're writing for.
I guess I'm a really analytical person, but when I'm writing, all that stuff goes behind a screen. Analysis and taking things apart is really important and really interesting, but it's the direct opposite of creating something, which has to do with taking things and putting them together and hoping to make something unique that's more than the sum of its parts. And you can't do that with analysis, you can only take things into smaller and smaller pieces.
I never considered myself an Americana artist, but I'm a huge fan of old-time music from the States, the recordings that were made in the '20s and '30s. Trying to chase down the exact stylistic trappings of that stuff always felt like a dead end. That spirit of directness and economy, but also the poetic pungency of the writing and almost ugly, or raw, performance - all that seemed like the real message. I've just tried to somehow stay true to that feeling.
