My parents were not affluent people and were not - didn't come from the extremities of education. My mother had a high school diploma. I often think I so wish she'd come out of the hills in Appalachia and been able to go on to college. I think she would have made a wonderful teacher.
I don't really think the outburst is recent; there have always been writers in Appalachia.
There is extreme poverty in Appalachia, where I was, and increasingly poverty is not just an urban thing.
I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.
From my perspective, we actually have to have a stronger, bolder economic message that's not just for white working-class voters, but for people who don't go to college who are white, black, Latino, or wherever. We have to communicate that we care about Detroit and Appalachia, and people suffering in both are problems for the country and a problem for the Democratic Party, not just one or just the other.