I'm a big fan of the young 1950s Elvis when he would just go onstage and control the whole environment.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you'll see you had to be sharp onstage.

When everything in life gets so complicated it only takes a day to change it

I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There's no tricks. It's honesty with big melodies.

Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitar player in the world... a guy who mastered that instrument. It was talking when he played. And when he did a solo, he made the guitar cry - or made it sound like it was coming from the devil's amplifier.

People can hear my songs are coming from something real. I mean what I say; I'm not just writing to impress critics or young girls, or older girls. The way I talk is the way I write a song.

There's always a bittersweet kind of thing, but I feel like everything had to work out the way it is. Everything that had to happen, happened.