I just want to be as creative as I possibly can.

I hope at some point in my career when my name is mentioned, someone will say "Oh yeah he has a good song!" I'd be happy with that.

Being a musician, you want to be able to do the hardest stuff there is. People would think it's classical, but in classical, it's all on the page and the difficulty is keeping up with the music.

Back in college, when I got kicked out of school, I was still in school, I'd just written the song that got me my record deal. If I hadn't gotten kicked out of school I wouldn't be where I am now. Three months after that, I got my record deal and the rest is history.

You know, most of my career I wrote about moments in time. All of us have felt one thing or another and it didn't last very long. Now I'm drawing from real experience. It's a huge difference.

I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don't. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.

I write about moments, and I don't make blanket statements about anything because no one has all the answers; nobody's come up with a foolproof way to do anything when it comes to emotions.