I think politics and personal psychology and interrelationships - these things are interrelated to me and overlap.

For most of the projects I've worked on, I've been entrusted with some degree of musical responsibility, even if it's just like coaching for vocals and stuff.

I'd been in a couple situations where I'd seen bands realize that they didn't have to get a good take in order to get something that sounded like a song. The musicians are there and they don't quite have it together, and then the engineer says, "Oh! That's okay, I'll just cut and paste the verse!"

I'm no good at predicting what will endure with people. I only know what speaks to me.

I'm an atrocious business man, because it's just not the way I think about things. And that's pretty much what all that Grammy/MTV kind of stuff is tied into.

I think there's been this long cycle of the big companies making a lot of money by underestimating people's intelligence and people are used to it now. So, they're so used to having their intelligence underestimated that, for most of them, it really isn't worth the bother of paying a little more attention to something that might hit them on a deeper level. But you can't really read people's minds.

Because as much as I love figuring out other people's puzzles, and love putting words together in ways that feel good to sing and sound good together and suit the melody, I think most of the best songs in the world are fairly clear about what they mean to say.