When I was first starting out, I drove myself around the country in my Honda Civic, playing anywhere that would have me. This is a chance to strip the songs down to their roots and let the audience hear them the way I write them.

I started taking piano lessons when I was 8 and I wrote my first song shortly after. Music was really important in my family. My grandma was a professional violin player and my parents first met when my dad was giving my mom guitar lessons.

I've never really presumed to know what my fans want or like. When I'm making the music, I just chase whatever I find interesting that day and luckily there are people who find it interesting as well.

I used to play trumpet when I was a kid, and then I got braces, and I couldn't really play it anymore, so sometimes I wish I could still play that; I think it's a great instrument, so maybe one of these days I'll pick it back up.

I don't need to get paid. I just wanna open. I just wanna get in front of new people.

I like to talk to the crowd on stage. I don't like going to a concert and feeling like the people on stage don't care whether or not I'm there.

I'm sort of a traditionalist usually. I love old soul music and The Beatles; I realized I was sort of trying to make music sometimes that fit into an era that's gone.