I never try and force-feed any song idea or lyrical message. It's really what's on my mind and what comes out of me. And a lot of these lyrics are metaphors for specific life situations that I've been through, and in most cases, the struggles. Something about human beings wearing sadness heavily on their sleeve inspires me to make something uplifting about the situation.

I have a lot of questions and I don't have that many answers. So what better place to exercise those thoughts than the lyrics, I guess.

I can tell when something's real, or when something's put together. I can just feel it.

I don't know that I can say what exactly love means to me because it would be hard to put that into perspective.

I've always found it pretty difficult to write a happy song. Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it's been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It's not really ever been my route.

I haven't touched meat or anything like that in over six years. You know what's pretty trippy, once I stopped, I didn't get sick from that point on. I'll get a light cold once in a while, but ever since that, I've just been completely on my toes and it helps for surfing too, to stay light on your toes and be healthy.

I've been through a lot of ups and downs. I've been on both sides of it all, I guess. So there's not one specific event or thought that I'm dealing with or drawing from necessarily.