My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.

Inviting audiences to open up and hear things differently is an important part of what I do. But I still love to sing songs with words, too.

It's not that I don't love the song. My songs are like my children: some you want around and some you want to send off to college as soon as possible.

If I sing "you broke my heart, you left me flat," everyone knows exactly what that means - they know the story. But if I sing a line that's plaintive or wailing, people can experience their own set of emotions and their own story. Each of us might give that phrase a different meaning. It's open to interpretation, and one song becomes a thousand songs. I love that.

The voice gets to the soul of a person more than any other instrument. Because it's the voice. It sings talks, it cries, it laughs, it squeals, it barks, it shouts it whispers, There is no other instrument that can do that. We're born with it.

Part of our responsibility as parents, as adults, is to set examples for children. But we have to like children in order to be really happy fulfilled adults

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.