A big part of making an album is that you want to have enough material - you want to have enough stuff for people to hear and know that it represents you.

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.

The musicians themselves don't seem to know enough about why they're in the positions they're in, so they're afraid to lose those positions.

I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before.

Going back and forth between wanting to be respected artistically and wanting to move people is its own challenge.

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.