“Mumford and Sons and Adele are both incredible artists and are great f...” — Dave Haywood Quote

Mumford and Sons and Adele are both incredible artists and are great for popular music. There's a lot of club music with heavy beats, so to have that Mumford record and hear banjos being used is so cool.

It is always weird to be in the studio working on Christmas music in June and July, so we decorated the entire studio, we really did. We brought out lights, fake trees and decorated the place to get in the Christmas spirit. You'd leave the studio, and it'd be 100 degrees out in Nashville, but nonetheless, a great experience.

At the Grammys, you walk down the halls and everyone's got five security guards. You can't talk to anybody. You always feel out of place, like, 'Hey, the rednecks are in town!'

Charles and I are from Augusta, Ga. - so we come from James Brown territory, soul music and Motown. And Charles has always had a lot of Southern rock in there as well.

My first three-sisters novel in a while, 'Sandcastles' tells the story of the Sullivan family - two passionate artists and their three wildly different daughters. There's also a renegade nun and a mystery man, but I don't want to give too much away!

Just as Renaissance artists provided narratives for the era they lived in, so do I. I'm always looking beyond the surface. I've done that ever since I first picked up a camera.

Seeing how those companies operate, it didn't amount to a massive vote of confidence in their artists. There was talk of me going to Columbia after that, but nothing happened. I got disillusioned, and I pulled back.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.