I walked to Seward School first through fourth grade. It's just amazing to me now that we'd walk down 10th Avenue on Capitol Hill.

It's amazing to say, and this is not an exaggeration, that Bob Rubin has more influence today on Capitol Hill than the current Treasury Secretary.

My methodology is not knowing what I'm doing and making that work for me.

A lot of people on Capitol Hill don't want to talk to me.

My daughter loves to do art stuff. As a father, I like to play with her. We break out the big pads of paper and the glitter and all the stuff. She likes to do what she likes to do. I want to do something, too. So I've just started using her same materials - a lot of crayons, a lot of sparkle, charcoal, pencils, markers and glue.

A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees.