King Tuff (Kyle Thomas)

"I'm a jacket man," King Tuff (aka Kyle Thomas) told me as we discussed why feeling good is important to the songwriting process. I had mentioned a writer who told me that he must wear a winter coat when he writes--even during the Washington, DC summers where he lives. This is not a complicated idea: if we're in a good headspace, we're more likely to be productive and write good songs. "I want to feel like I'm sparkling and then want the songs to feel like treasure, like candy," Thomas says.

But touch is not the only sense that puts King Tuff in creative mode. Like most of us, the primitive sense of smell does it for him. "I love the smell of hose water on cement and of wood smoke in the frozen air," he says.

King Tuff's latest album is Moo.

*photo by Wyndham Garnett