But I can't really say there is too much modern music that I'm blown away by at this moment

I make the kind of music I like

It's inevitable your environment will influence what you do

But really important, perhaps most important is the craft; how you make your record, the creation of these sonic worlds you want your listener to hear.

When I was a teenager, I got into four track recorders, drum machines, and synthesizers, and I started producing instrumental music.

A real foolproof way to do it is play your stuff by hook or by crook and build up a grass roots following

I also wanted to make a record that was about other things than romance, yeah, after two years on the road singing all the songs from the first album, I got kind of tired of that.