As far as writing, it's grown because I've really grown comfortable with who I am.
When you play the bars, you pay your dues. It does matter that you know those things [songs]. And the great thing for me, too, is that I draw on that stuff as influences. It's also stuff that you put in the tank that you pull from to make records.
It's always the roughest path, but I think it's got the most reward at the end.
I'm not a trust-fund type.
The most important thing for me as an artist is having an identity.
In the digital age we're in now, with satellite radio and Pandora and stuff like that, it's not about, "I listen to this kind of music." It's about, "I listen to good music and bad music."