If I start writing a song and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.

If I want to hang out with people, they unfortunately need to be working as often as I am.

I feel like a lot of people look at pop music with a very formulaic perspective in numbers and patterns, but an outsider would think that the process is very natural. It is, but there are a lot of times where people treat it like a sport - there are tricks you can pull, different combinations that make something better. I don't really think I approach it that way, but I definitely have a love for the science that is pop song writing.

As an artist you very much want to have control over your dialogue and your image and when you become exposed in a way where other people are manipulating your brand or the public perception of you that's where it can be frustrating. It's when you want to tell everyone to shut the f*** up and say "hear it from me, not from them." That's all.

If I start writing a song and you try to have a conversation with me, you're a bad person.

If you're not inspired and you're working hard to pull inspiration from somewhere and make a song something it's not, then it's very contrived and I don't like to write music that's contrived.

Anyone who has been with me from the beginning has worked from the trenches with me and they've worked really hard. People that I have brought in where I am now, they haven't worked the way that we have, they haven't lost the sleep, and you know, the blood, sweat, and tears.