I'll listen to anything authentic whether it's bluegrass or gospel or blues.

I was in a bluegrass band. I made two records with a band called the SteelDrivers. They were nominated for two Grammys. I then I was in a rock band called the Junction Brothers; we made kind of '70s hard rock music.

It is a really interesting to hear yourself on the radio. I've gotten to hear myself in different capacities. I've heard myself on Sirius XM on the bluegrass channels, and on WSM and other places.

I don't know that my voice ever makes sense anywhere, necessarily. I would sing bluegrass music, and I don't fit in there; I would sing rock music, and I'm probably a little too hillbilly for that. And country, I'm too much rock n' roll for there sometimes.

I think, until I was 16, classical music had just seemed like a little bit of a rhythmic wasteland for me. Coming from bluegrass, where one conducts oneself rhythmically, it seemed like such a different approach, and at that point the difference that I was noticing was a real turn off to me.

Growing up in a bluegrass or acoustic-oriented world, the musicians become so focused on performance, as far as playing. We tend to overanalyze the notes, so you're always trying to sharpen everything up.

I certainly love the bluegrass ensemble, I think it's a powerful tool, but I don't think it's more than a tool.

Improvisation is an important part of bluegrass, and I would hasten to add that classical music wasn't always such an improvisational void. Back in the day, everyone's cadenzas were improvised, and improvisation was taught in conservatories.

What makes one type of music classical and one bluegrass and one folk - these things aren't what's important.

I think what people call genre is just a question of orchestration. So, for instance, with Punch Brothers, you look at that band and say that's a bluegrass band, when really it's an orchestration choice.

I always loved bluegrass, but there was so much I didn't know about American country music in respect to the origins of this country. It was interesting to see the evolution of it.

I started playing bluegrass with my family, so there were the G, C and D chords. I was playing a Martin acoustic because that's what Carter Stanley of the Stanley Brothers played. Then I got into the really raw blues of Hound Dog Taylor and started on electric guitar.

It was so much fun playing simple American bluegrass. I got to meet Doc Watson.

It seems like bluegrass people have more great stories to tell than other musicians.

There are so many wonderful, wonderful musicians in the world, I cannot possibly make a distinction between the fact that they might play classical music, or bluegrass, or Irish traditional, or Indian music.

My parents were both writers - they would type their manuscripts sitting side by side on the veranda of our house near Watford - so I wanted to do something different. I wanted to be a bluegrass singer, an architect, a landscape gardener, or to do something with animals.

I'm influenced by Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelly, Roland Kirk, John Coltrane, B.B. King, and then by bluegrass. But when I was 16, bluegrass wasn't cool. We was rock n' rollers then: Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis.

That's what I love about Nashville and the music community - seeing kids around acoustic music and bluegrass picking parties is the best.

In my 30s, I became more open to music other than country or bluegrass.

I was like, 'Man, bluegrass - that's like Roy Clark playing banjo on 'Hee Haw.' I'm a huge 'Hee Haw' fan. But I didn't know about bluegrass. It seemed like old people's music.

I like big shows, a lot of volume and a lot of energy. I love electric instruments. But I do love mixing those with bluegrass instruments and cranking those up, too, with a little bit of that rock energy.

I think the great country songs mixed with some of that bluegrass instrumentation - and surrounding all that with a little bit of a rock vibe and energy - is the kind of music I make.

I love bluegrass music, I love acoustic music, and I try at the right times to push that a little bit.

People like bluegrass. It's had a following amongst a lot of hip and young people. A lot of college kids like bluegrass.

Bluegrass has a very, very strict musical form. Once you start to dilute it, it disappears.

I went to Appalachian State University, which was very bluegrass- and folk-oriented.

There's a roots nature to Appalachia - the origins of folk and bluegrass. I know guys there who are some of the best players I've ever heard but are playing on their porch tonight because they've never chased success. There's simplicity to how they live and what they care about.

If you looked at my iPod, you would get a trip out of all the different music, from the real heavy metal to bluegrass to classical.

I play these sort of comical instruments I invented, like the electric rake and the electric plunger. I do a lot of almost stand-up comedy material. Just the juxtaposition of the different styles in itself sometimes is funny. Like, I do sort of an acoustic version of 'Purple Haze' that has some bluegrass licks in it.

There's only one Hank Williams, man. Singing that high-voiced style, them bluegrassers, I don't see how they do it - Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe - it's just a natural thing, man.

I guarantee you there's a bunch of the twentysomethings that don't know that, don't know I play banjo and bluegrass.