Those wounds stay with you, and you turn them into a language and a purpose.

The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

Fame, on its best day, is kind of like a friendly wave from a stranger by the side of the road. And when it's not so good, it's like a long walk home, all alone, with nobody in when you get there.

But the star thing I can live with. The music I can't live without. And that's how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention.

For me, once I count the band in, and I delve deep into my song, I feel a certain sort of integrity and integration that I rarely find in my daily life.

If you see me performing, you're going, that guy is simply the most extroverted guy I've ever seen. But if you've seen me very often on a daily basis and all the while growing up, I was very, very introverted. Very introverted. So I have sort of the extremes of both of those characteristics.

When I was young, it was sort of built to intimidate. Even on this very local level in this very small church in this small town, it still held that sort of - held you in the palm of its darkness.