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Folk rock was my real roots. I did a few gigs as a folk artist, in the style of Fairport Convention.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

I was reared on folk music.

I grew up in a farm town in Indiana. In the early years I played by myself, because there were no other musicians around.

I grew up in Manchester in a big Irish family - there are seven of us in all - so my life has always been about role-playing, about doing anything for a laugh. I'm always joking about; that's the way I am.

I was a total music nerd. I grew up on Perry Street in the '80s. My father wrote books about jazz, so I was always at the 'Village Vanguard.'

I've been in a New York City-based cabaret for the past seven years called The Citizens Band. It's possibly one of the most brilliant things I've ever been involved with.

I came back to New York after college like any number of struggling performers, and you just find that niche where you can have some sort of impact. And for me that turned out to be comedy.

It never dawned on me that I had the option of becoming a comedian. I come from a little dirt street town in northwest Texas, and they really don't talk about the arts there much on career day.

I don't think of myself as a folk singer per se, but I really like blues and string-band music. When I started listening to records when I was a teenager, the folk boom was going on.