I have to be creative to be happy.

There's nothing that compares to being in a band with your best friends. We're so comfortable together, we understand each other. It feels, like, normal. Whereas solo period felt like I was trying to be something, and play a role, and pretend.

When you write a great song, it just blows you away. When you write a song that connects with people around the world - I mean like it actually transcends language barriers - you see how it can affect people, and it's quite a tall order to follow up on.

I'm just writing what I feel, and I really don't think I've done anything wrong that I need to hide. The biggest thing, and I don't even like to bring it up, is my children - you know, you've gotta protect them.

I think when I first started discovering I could write songs, I was so naive. And it was after I got broken up with and had my heart sliced up into a bunch of little pieces that I was like, "I'm going to say this." I didn't even know how to play guitar.

I remember the day I discovered James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. I don't know why it affected me so strongly, but I walked down to the corner store and bought every poster of them, and I did my whole room up. Overnight.

Music has this emotional thing to it, and it touches people in crazy ways. The power of having that power is something that, once you have it, you don't want it to ever end.