I like 'Bewitched' off the first album because it's one of the happiest songs I've ever written and as any writer will tell you happy songs are a million times more difficult to write than sad songs.

I try to make an album that reflects what I love about country music. It's not just all about happy parties all the time. There are some sad songs.

I'm part of the party getting the crowd fired up singing songs pouring drinks whatever it takes to get them to have a good time. When I walk into the meet-and-greet someone's always going to have a story a sad story or a happy story.

I love the sad songs with their maudlin self-deprecating almost funny lyrics. As an Englishman they make a lot of sense.

It's fun to sing sad songs. And it's fun to listen to sad songs. Enjoyable. Satisfying. Something.

I know for works for me - those wonderful sad love songs.

I think a lot of people think that my parents' deaths is why I write such sad songs but that's not true. Those songs may just be the woman I am.

I always think of the live show first where the song is gonna go in the show. That's why they aren't sad songs. When I play I want to make people happy not sad. It's such a pleasure for me to do what I do and I want other people to feel some form of that pleasure too.

Even when I'm in quite a happy state of mind I like writing really sad songs. I think a lot of people do.

It's really a sad story and I liked that. The songs on this album talk about relationships in every aspect.

Well the country songs themselves are three-chord stories ballads which are mostly sad. If you are already feeling sorry for yourself when you listen to them they will take you to an even sadder place.

Falling in love is awesome but I'm never drawn to happy songs per se so whenever you sit down to write a heartbreak song and you're happily in love it's like 'OK now I have to go back to a sad place to get something good.'

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

We look before and after And pine for what is not Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a hopeless romantic who listens to love ballads and doo-wop songs all the time.

I work on words quite separately to music. They're both ongoing and I don't ever feel like I'm working in a cycle in that respect because it's every day anyway no matter what I'm doing. Then I get to a point when I've collected together enough words that seem like they want to be songs rather than poems or sometimes not.

My focus is always on the day. What I've done behind me I try to have respect for it and keep an eye on it and make sure it isn't abused and obviously be thoughtful about it because it's all real to me. I'm basically in every band I ever was in and the songs I still mean them all.

Why do you think I write these feminist songs to try and teach myself to respect myself. You know it's not because I'm a hero.

And I used to think that proof that I had religion was whether I knew how to sing all of the songs.

The songs keep on writing themselves and I really love them. It's as close as I get to a religion.

I started listening to and playing other music in the '90s. It was after hearing other bands like Bad Religion cover Ramones songs that I started to like our songs again.

You have this mounting aggressive ignorance with the rabbit's foot of their particular religion. You don't really have any kind of spiritual law just a kind of a rabid mental illness. The songs are a little slice of life.

The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life my relationship with God and where I'm from. Well I can't write a song on purpose my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.