I don't think anything has changed about me but my priorities have changed. At one point I was living my life and I didn't see a direct correlation between who I was affecting with my actions. I'm not as reckless, I'm probably not as fun or funny. I've turned to my dad's sense of humor. I think that having a family has put a lot more focus on what I do.

When you write a song you're more or less saying, "This is everyone. I think this is everyone." It doesn't necessarily have to be this thing where I go out and I'm like candy-striping, or becoming a therapist or something. I think that maybe, maybe I'm supposed to [be a musician], because of that fact.

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.

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.

I got really lucky when I found somebody that I want to be friends with forever.

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.

It does feel really good to sing songs about somebody that I really respect, admire, love, care about and am so passionately attracted to after all this time.