Jason Isbell

People love to be listened to and represented, and they love it when they feel like you have some of the same problems that they do. Everybody deals with things like romantic difficulties in relationships and death and cancer and abuse.

As my life changes, it gives me new things to write about.

I've spent a lot of time in a rock n' roll band trying to fight off the fact that I was old enough to rent a car. And it's all sort of rushed in at once now. And I like it.

My wife and I both grew up with parents who were very young. Her mom was, I think, 17 or 18 when she was born; my mom was 15 when I was born. So, as we got older, we started thinking a lot about that - about the time that those people missed because we came along when we did and because they devoted so much of their lives to taking care of us.

My wife is so very important to me that it's made my mom more important to me. It's made every woman I know more important to me.

If I could write rock & roll songs on purpose, I'd do it all the time. But most of what I write comes out slow and sad because that's most of what I listen to.

The world changes fast, and a lot of the old country folks have a hard time keeping up with it, and it makes them sad.

When I hear somebody like Hayes Carll write a song that's touching and poignant and sad and funny all at the same time, it motivates me to step my game up and try to figure out a way to get more different emotions into one line or one song.

I didn't know what to expect when we first started touring behind 'Southeastern' because you don't want to lull anybody to sleep or lose their attention. But it's really been incredible how the crowds seem to be just as excited for the slow, sad songs as they are for the old rockers.

The good thing about songwriting is you don't have to delineate between what's true and what's fiction; records aren't put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren't.

I don't think I'd be happy if I were satisfied. I enjoy challenge, and I wouldn't say that I'm an ambitious person career-wise or financially, really. I would like to travel more comfortably, but that's really about all I need.

The idea of growing up in the South and being a man is an interesting thing; there's a lot masculinity involved, with hunting, fishing, and playing sports that rural people take pride in, but at the same time, I grew up really not wanting to hate anybody.

Whatever needed to be done, I need to know how to do it just as well as my wife. You know, for us to be able to really balance the parenting. It was very humbling, and it was also, um - terrifying. Because, you know, giving a baby a bath for the first time is one of the scariest things you can do on this whole earth.