They say what doesn't kill the soul will make you stronger, but you can't be a stone-hearted man.

My mother, father and brothers (I was the youngest of three boys), were all very sarcastic and we were a complete Irish-Catholic family. We didn't talk about our feelings ever, and if we did, we were yelling about them - there was no in-between. That's just carried over so many ways in my life and sabotaged relationships, sabotaged creative stuff.

If you do the right thing, the right thing will come down the path.

I'm still learning, but I can see there are decisions in life that are going to be very challenging and it's always better to get through them, always.

I would prefer that, rather than sitting down and giving someone advice, I would way rather write a song about what I was going through. I think that's a pure, organic process of learning from someone else's mistakes.

I deal with everything in my life in music - everything that ever happens to me just finds its way into a song or onto a record. I need it. It's like my life jacket. If I didn't have that way of processing those feelings, I'd probably be a murderer.

As far as keeping my sanity, it's something I've only recently tried to focus on as a means of self-preservation.