I started putting down my own pen and spending some time searching for the best songs out there possible. It doesn't matter if I wrote them or not.

If I'm happy with the song and it's a hit song or not, for the rest of my life, I can hang my hat on knowing I did the best I could, and I'll enjoy getting out there and doing it. That's all that really matters for me. The icing on the cake is people actually enjoy it and sing it back to you. That's when you know that you've done something great.

There's always going to be life experiences that find their way into my songs.

But that's the problem with playing new music sometimes before the record comes out: You have a bunch of yayhoots with opinions.

I'm from Florida, so any time I get invited to come to Florida and play a show, I'm definitely always up for that.

I believe a No. 1 song starts happening when it's believable and validating.

Not to be narcissistic, but I truly believe in order to make yourself better, you should see what you did before and what was good about that and what wasn't - same way a football team plays a game and then they go back and watch film.