Lucy is such a sweet dog, and so good with kids, it made writing the song easy.

Requirements for a live audition were that you had to have your dog with you, along with your children. And neither the dog nor the kids could be borrowed. At that point I thought the song was really good, and we had put a lot into it. So driving to New Jersey to perform it was no big deal.

I figured the opportunity to win $200,000 to renovate the house was worth a little bit of time invested. It was a chance to have fun, and if we were lucky enough to win, we?d have some money to get a lot of work done.

I think one of the things about writing in the studio is that the song hasn't matured, if you like, so quite often the vocals are early attempts. Whereas once you've taken it out on the road a bit, you learn more about a song.

I open up a big cabinet, and I have a collection of helmits. I put on the different helmets, and I take tree bottles of Robitussin and drink them really quickly. Then I set my hands on fire-I have to write whatever comes to mind pretty fast, before my hand burnsoff." "I just let whatever comes out, comes out without thinking about it to much. Some of it I keep, some I toss out, some of it I turn into giant cigarettes and somke 'em. I think everybodu should just turn off their TV machines and make up their own songs about whatever comes to mind-their couch, their friends their loaves of bread. Everybody's got their own songs. There should be so many songs out there that it all turns into one big sound and we can put the whole thing into a pickup truck and let it roll off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Set your guitars and banjos on fire and before you write a song smoke a pack of whiskey and it'll all take care of itself.