Ian Ethan Case, 18-string acoustic guitarist from Boston, shares his thoughts on what music means to him and his influences in life.

Your work seems to express a strong nature motif, from cover art to song titles. Does nature have a big influence on the songs you create? If so, how?

Yeah. I really feel that it does. When people ask me who my influences are, I’m like, well, kind of trees you know? What I mean by that, I don’t go outside and look for cool stuff in nature and then write a song about it, because I don’t feel like writing music is a thing. You can think that you wrote something, but really you’re finding something that was there all along and that’s where I really relate to nature.

What are the most profound influences, whether in life or music, for your creativity?

Another thing about growing up in very rural areas, just the fact that there were very few people to play with, for better or for worse I think that has a lot to do with the way my musical path has developed mentally and is continuing now. Anything I wanted to hear I had to do it myself basically.

Tom Sundgren can be reached at [email protected] or @tom_sundgren on Twitter.