Even the most deft pen is a clumsy tool.

Sometimes I'm really communicating with the audience and I'm hyper-engaged. Other times my eyes are closed and I just let it be what it is.

I don't want an angry song with no silver lining ending up on my album. Then I'd have to play, or feel obliged to play, that song every night in repetition as a mantra of anger.

It's so rare that I'll read or even watch an interview. I don't want to, either. I don't want to see other people's comments.

I get very heated about anything that is socially unkind.

Even the most deft pen is a clumsy tool.

I think the most important thing to remember is that pain passes. And artistically, the pain is going to pass. It's what you want to express out of the pain as opposed to indulging in the agony-and-pain mantra of songwriting that became such a hit in the '90s and still, all the way up to now.