You get a lot of who you are as a musician across through the music you write. If you're writing your own music, then it's important to be really honest.
I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I'm giving you myself in the music. There's where the connection comes from; you can't Twitter that.
We could walk 3 minutes and be on the beach. I think the music kind of suffered because of it. It kind of smelled like Jimmy Buffett, which is a bad thing.
I get to play with all these different players who don't necessarily approach music always the same way that I might. So I learn a lot.
In the days when regional music was very clearly defined and had a clear personality - Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, whatever - Philadelphia had a tradition that was very distinct and unique.
The only job I'd ever had that might be considered not playing music was teaching guitar, which I did in college for a while, but that still falls in the same category.
I try to listen to a lot of music when I'm in the mixing process of a record, when I'm in post-production and trying to get everything to sound a certain way.
My CD collection has a lot of world music - lots of Indian, African, Portuguese, Greek, Italian music. Because of my husband, a lot of jazz, too.
People like Jeff Buckley, the Mars Volta and Bjork made me listen to music differently. You learn the voice is an instrument you can do crazy things with.
I have a visual sense for the music. It has to stay true to a certain sense of period. I rely on a sense of colors and mood in my approach to the arrangement.
I have a desire that I want to make people feel happy through my music. I'm always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.
Adam does most of the work when it comes to videos and he basically does the same as I do with the lyrics. The videos are his visual interpretations of our music.
A montage is incredibly challenging. When I can, I'd like to know what the music is going to be ahead of time because that will affect the beat, the pace of the montage.
With music, you're working with a producer, and you walk out of the studio six hours later with a track that's almost completely finished. There's an almost immediate payoff.
Some artists are bound to an image: Bob Marley has dreadlocks, Matisyahu has a beard. But that's a reminder that the whole thing is not about style. It's about music.
I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer.
So many schools have cut the music classes out of their curriculum. We're trying to fill that gap by teaching the teachers how to educate the kids about their musical heritage.
I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.
I want to let fans know how much I appreciate them and how much I appreciate them showing interest in our music and me personally.
One thing we have to remember as songwriters is that we have to consider that country music is the country's music. That doesn't mean that everybody's rural.
I always know I'm a country singer, and regardless of where I've fallen into different places with my music, I know that, really, I'm a country singer.
