For me able to do the records I want to do and not have to worry about this producer or that producer or that trend, I'm not really interested in that.

For me able to do the records I want to do and not have to worry about this producer or that producer or that trend, I'm not really interested in that.

Music used to be essential and meaningful, but now it's disposable.

When it's your chance to step up to the plate, just hit it out of the park, and everybody will forget about everything that came before.

I used to play pianos in bars. You know in hotels, you'd see guys playing piano with a snifter? That was me, with a painted-on mustache. I was about 15.

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 went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that's what I got back to.