No matter how naturally gifted you are, it's your passion that's going to make you better and maybe touch some people.

In the end, I think musicians know that getting up in the morning and making music you love doesn't necessarily mean that you deserve billions of dollars or worship from anybody.

I'm obviously really opinionated, but as a producer, you don't necessarily want the person you're working with to try to impress you - you want them to just be themselves. Then you can edit or mess around with what they've come up with. But you have to allow the artist that space.

Even with artists I love, only about a third of their music is what really hits the sweet spot for me.

What affected me the most about the Beatles was that they were the biggest band in the world and they could have done anything they wanted.

I have ideas all of the time from the beginning, but they never really wind up turning out like I thought they would.

I started out really making music in my dorm room, and it wasnt really producing or anything like that; it was you making something.