Every song is completely different. Sometimes they come like a lump of clay and it's your job to chip away and find out what's in the center. Sometimes it comes like swimming fish, and you have to follow it and see where it leads. Sometimes it comes totally fragmented.

Songs don't really feel like me unless I somehow shed a little secret or open myself somehow or be vulnerable. When I'm singing these songs, it feels like me, and that comes with the vulnerabilities and the strengths and the moments of triumph or whatever.

If I hear a really good song it's like, oh man, I want to write a song that good. But the urge to create mostly comes from nature, weather and I think it just effects me.

I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to travel and write songs and be a good songwriter. It came to me slowly after college.

I think anyone who is an artist or writer or owns their own business or whatever can agree that when you come up with something on your own, it's an addictive feeling.

I also love fall, when it starts to rain, or even just before the rain - that is the most inspiring thing.

Paul Simon is my absolute hero. He's one of a kind. He wrote his own ticket in life by being himself.