There's always something extremely personal in the songs, but I may change the point of view from what I actually experienced.

Music is kind of a strange business, and it's too weird of a job to have mean, conniving people around.

Putting your ego aside and confronting your weaknesses and just letting things happen is hard. Not to use a Scientology term, but it's difficult to do an emotional or an artistic audit.

What I did with my first records was, my writing process was that I didn't touch any instruments to write it, so I was making it all on the computer, and really the arrangements were coming first, the intricate thing.

With the first kid, you micromanage it, making sure there's no hair out of place when it goes off to school. But by the third kid, it's more like, "Oh, you want to wear a splatter-painted, Hard Rock Café T-shirt for seven days in a row and not brush your hair? Go for it. Be who you want to be."

I'm first and foremost a guitar player. I've been playing since I was 12, which is over half of my life. I like the physicality of it; you can strangle it or make it sing. I wouldn't say I'm a very technical player, though. I'm more intuitive - it's always more about chasing an abstraction.

I was a lusty kid who loved Tennessee Williams. Sexy plays. [For musicians] there are so many that it's hard just to say one. Certain things, like the first time you hear A Love Supreme, you're floored. It takes whatever you were listening to and blows a hole in it.