Quote

You know, I was a community activist, so I'm used to standing out in front of an elected official's office and protesting.

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.

Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.

The reason that conservative talk radio works is because there is an audience for it.

Protest is patriotic. Since the beginning of musical time, American singers and songwriters have used their talent and bully pulpits to show us America's strengths and shortcomings.

Other than Green Day, we haven't had a lot of protest music over the past few decades.

I was involved in some peaceful protests.

I mean, there's a hell of a lot of grounds for protest, but you don't do it through music.

It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs.

As much as I'd like to think and as much as people mistakenly think my audience is blue collar people in the heart of America, my audience is basically, in the States, an NPR audience. I play college towns in the summer because that's who comes to see me.