I love what I'm doing here but I hate being away from home. I hate it. I look forward to one day raising a family myself, and I really look forward to children but when that day comes, I don't want to be an absent dad. I'm already an absent husband.

It's a whole nother aspect of this life that most people have no idea about. There's the loved ones, the wives, the girlfriends, the children. Some of the people out here are fathers and mothers. Whether you mean to or not, you end up neglecting your family in a lot of ways. Even if you do your best to keep in touch, the fact of the matter is that you're physically absent.

So it's a constant struggle, it's a constant balance, it's a constant search to find the balance between being responsible, carrying on with this as a livelihood and making ends meet, but at the same time, respecting your loved ones and being able to stay in touch and be there for them, at least emotionally since you're not there physically.

The song writing is different because with this stuff, I write it on my own and with Hot Water, we're more of a collective and I love both sides of that. Honestly, it's two different animals but I love and respect them both and feel really honored to be blessed with people who care about it and come out and support both sides of it.

You're always kind of shifting and changing and it's a really exciting process.

It almost feels like I have the best of both worlds in a sense. I also respect the fact that all of this could be over tomorrow so I do everything I can just to cherish the moments and days and these opportunities I have to share music that I believe in with these people who care about it.

I've always written songs to use music as a form of therapy or as a way to look at my obstacles or my memories from a different perspective. It's always helped me realize the grass isn't always greener and how I need to live more in the moment. My songwriting is a documentation of whatever's happening in my life at that point in time.