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I actually had a nickname as a player myself. When I played high school football in Texas, strong safety, they called me Choo Choo because they said I hit like a train.

There are always generic terms like 'Americana', but there are no boundaries as to where it can go.

I was into playing American music, especially the blues.

Since I was a kid, I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties, Chicago blues of the Fifties, West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana.

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.

Tell me the truth - do you think I've lost my Southern accent? I feel it comes back to me only when I'm shouting at fights or at baseball games.

Too much emphasis is put on American roots music when people try and place me. You know, I grew up listening to punk.

I just developed my act way back in the late '80s. I went to college in Georgia, so I picked up the Southern accent. I talked like that with my friends all the time, because it was fun. It was funny... All my friends were real Southern. We're buddies, so I'd say stuff to make them laugh. So that was pretty much it.

Not everybody in the country-music community is like me - I just happen to be one of the guys that is stereotypical.