I have some vivid memories of walking around as a child with a cassette tape.

I approach every show from the same fundamental perspective: this is a conversation, and my job is to make people leave the show feeling like they've seen something singular. It's not about smashing someone over the head from the jump-off.

I'm learning on the guitar all the time.

Its always important to fall back on your instincts and core beliefs and that was pretty hard for me to do but trusting in my self the way I trusted that if I were to sit at a piano for two hours and I was going learn something, that trust I'd put in myself really helped me get through it. For five to six months I just wrote songs and believed they would turn out to be things I could be proud of and be happy.

You play a couple of shows, and these label guys come - and they leave halfway through a show. Then the phone calls just stop. And your heart is broken.

My favorite records are not easy - they're not records that reveal everything to you the first time out.

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.