If you start getting yourself into just doing stuff for the money, even if it's a desperate situation, I just firmly believe that if you stick it out through that, then something right will come down the path.

For a really long time, I've been trying to find balance where I can talk about my feelings and be upfront with people, confront issues and not have to beat them to death or ignore them.

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.

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.

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

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.