I grew up being aware that I was Southern, and that being a very important thing for me. And being drawn to short story writers, like Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty-the surroundings in their stories were so familiar to me, the whole Southern Gothic thing. That world only existed in that part of the country. It's going to inform the personality of the songs. In a lot of my songwriting, I mention towns and places. It's a culturally traditional thing in the South to tell stories.