When I was growing up on our 53-acre dairy farm, we were obsessed with food; it was the center of our lives. We planted it, grew it, harvested it, peeled it, cooked it, served it, consumed it - endlessly, day after day, season after season.

I suppose the desire to go to town helped make me ambitious, and the allure of the worlds that came in over the radio also helped. But the rewards of growing up on a farm were far greater in many ways than life in town.

Rock and roll is about desire, about wanting something better. I think my characters all want something better. My understanding of the rock and roll dream is that a kid in an isolated place or a small town or an underprivileged world could transcend it somehow.

Some people will stay at home and be content there. Others are born to run. It's that conflict that fascinates me.

My family is not only attractive - I can say that because I'm paterfamilias - but they're really smart, and they're very, very compassionate.

We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages, our own meatloafs, our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business.

Bambi has a profound effect on children because it's about losing your mother.

One of my school friends' parents owned a minigolf course, and a bunch of us kids would play there all day in the summer. Two-under deuces was a good score.