I'm not God's gift to rockabilly. There's great players out there, and some of them deserve a lot more than they've gotten.

The songwriting has never really stepped forward from the '50's.

Elvis is not so difficult as Johnny Cash because his voice is so distinctive. If you try to copy Johnny Cash, it's just going to sound dumb.

It's not about how loud you turn the amp up. That's not what makes it sound big. What makes it sound big is fooling around with different delays and reverb settings.

I didn't want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.

Since the big band started I'm just always swamped with movies and things. It certainly pays the bills and it's very satisfying, because I get to write all these big charts and all this crazy music.

Normally, you go into the recording studio, make a record and then take it on the road and you think... wow... I could have done THIS to it, or something.

The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of.

Veteran performers are dying off, and new acts simply aren't emerging on the national scene.

I basically sat down for a month, with all the Sun stuff I could find and just picked out my favorites. I didn't think that they were indicative of '54 to '57, although I tried to stay within that period.

Mark Winchester has left the band. He's decided that he's tired of the road and just wants to concentrate on his career in Nashville. I don't blame him at all. He'll certainly be missed.

I wanted to go back to Sun. Unfortunately, most of the gear is gone from Sun. The way I take it now, it's almost like a tourist destination. So, it would have been pretty difficult to have brought all the gear into Sun to make it like it was in the '50's.

It is hard to play Blue Suede Shoes. I know everyone has heard it 10 million times, and that makes it even harder to play it, but there's a very laid back tempo on that. I was surprised at how slow it really was.

People out there maybe know who Junior Parker is and some of those Sun Records blues guys.

Don't be afraid to take liberties with this music. Try and put some of yourself into it.

I put a metronome up to all the songs, and I tried to really keep it true to the original tempos.

I'm not God's gift to rockabilly. There's great players out there, and some of them deserve a lot more than they've gotten.

I can't tell you how many people have asked me to show them Stray Cat Strut and that little diminished run on the C. I guess my brain is wired backwards. I don't know what possessed me to do that, but I did.

We weren't afraid to mix some crazy styles into the standard rockabilly look. We also took a lot of different musical influences that were part of that era.

With the Stray Cats at least, we really took the music somewhere else. First, we wrote our own songs. That's a real weak point in modern classics if you do rockabilly or blues.

To keep creating something with this type of music, you have to take it out of the box.

For every rockabilly festival staged here, there are 10 held overseas.

The biggest challenge for me was Get Rhythm. I don't know why.

A lot of people put all that stuff on a pedestal, and they won't touch it. But I don't think that's the reason they did that. I think they played that stuff out of pure joy.

I always thought when I hit 50 years old that'd be it for the travel. I don't have to tell you - you wait at an airport, your flight's delayed, get on a 14-hour flight, get off, get stuck in traffic, you get to the hotel and the room service is closed.

I like a good pompadour.

I started a big band when grunge was popular. I mean, that didn't make much sense.

If you listen to everybody's opinions, I mean, I always say I'd be digging a ditch on the side of the road now if I had listened to what everybody told me what to do. You know, you have to follow your heart, you have to.

Robert Plant is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, never mind rock star. He's so down to earth.

Rock and roll and swing never quite mixed. Rock and roll came in and just blew everything out of the water. Big bands were dead.

To me, rockabilly music paralleled punk's energy and feeling, but the players were much better.

If you listen to everybodys opinions I mean I always say Id be digging a ditch on the side of the road now if I had listened to what everybody told me what to do. You know you have to follow your heart you have to.

Songwriting is my gift from God.

This is God's work. Therefore it must be triumphant. There is no place for misgiving or despondency.

Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

I frankly don't care if you agree with my stand on abortion. I take that stand because no other stand is consistent with decent principles, and no other standard is consistent with the will of God.

The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.

The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

Humanity is the sin of God.

Fight the good fight of faith, and God will give you spiritual mercies.

We are all gifted, but we have to discover the gift, uncover the gift, nurture and develop the gift and use it for the Glory of God and for the liberation struggle of our people.

This subsistence, or manner of being of God is his one essence so far as it has personal properties.

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

Two days after moving we recommended ourselves to God, Our Lord, and fled, hoping that, although it was late in the season and the fruits of the tunas were giving out, by remaining in the field we might still get over a good portion of the land.

When I see children, I see the face of God. That's why I love them so much. That's what I see.

'Thou shalt not get found out' is not one of God's commandments; and no man can be saved by trying to keep it.

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.