When making a record, I could done a new face pretty easily and use all these different devices to hide who I am - or who I was - which really had very little to do with what I was trying to convey.

I knew what I wanted to do, which was to become a recording artist, so I definitely felt like I had a calling. The performing part was the part that I wasn't sure about.

I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things.

I'm a product of my environment.

I procrastinate, and I push writing to the last available moment, because I don't like to settle on anything. I guess you can call it indecision or you can call it holding out for inspiration.

I sang "Patience" by Guns N' Roses for my sixth grade talent show and I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. It was all very, very theatrical. It was only later that I separated the two and thought of myself as quite the opposite of an actor.

As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about.