Musically, what happened was this: I retired twice. I retired after The Black Crowes, and I retired after Brand New Immortals. Then, we started buying real estate, which really took up my time. I was busy. I was still teaching yoga, but I was mostly busy running business, and I was fine. I was happy.
Country music's always had the best musicians in any format of music, and I always gravitated toward that, stuff that was musically interesting.
Anybody that has followed closely what I've been doing can see from 'Home,' being as big a hit as it was, it kind of opened the door for me to try new things musically.
The musicians in the band, and myself as a performer, love the risks of the unpredictable and the feeling of jumping off cliffs musically.
I think every artist would love to just please themselves musically all day long.
Whatever is original in my writing comes from my musical apprenticeship. I look for rhythm in words. I imagine words as if they were musical chords. Often I'll write something, read it, and find it musically unsatisfactory. There is a musical imperative in my choice of words.
Typically, people think, 'Oh the hippies and the punks hated each other,' or that those things don't go together musically. Sometimes that is true, but we had equal parts of both in our musical DNA.
