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As someone who has long loved history and reads a lot of history, especially when you get a distance like 130 years, these people can seem almost mythical, and you need something tangible to make them real.

Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.

Many people we consider legends, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, remain so scarred by scandals, injustices and regrets from decades earlier that they're barely able to appreciate their accomplishments.

You know, legends are people like Haggard and Jones and Wills and Sinatra. Those people are legends. I'm just a young buck out here trying to keep in that same circle with the rest of 'em.

When a person becomes a legend, the very thing that makes them human and knowable is killed off, so it's like being killed over and over and over again, for all eternity.

I know about various fictional and folkloric vampire mythoses the way other people know about the personal life of celebrities.

Sometimes I think that when people become famous, there's a public perception that they are not human beings any more. They don't have feelings; they don't get hurt; you can act and say as you like about them.

To me, the whole idea of fame and I think it can be a real test of somebody, of who they are. You know, 'cause some strange things happen. I've seen some peculiar things as far as a person just living their life.

I love studying folklore and legends. The stories that people passed down for a thousand years without any sort of marketing support are obviously saying something appealing about the basic human condition.

I appear to be drawn to iconic characters and what they reflect back to our cultures.