Sometimes you need to turn things down in the interest of being able to do the weird, magical thing that you do that takes so much of your time, and effort, and requires so much of your vulnerability and presence. If you don't take care of yourself, that goes away and you don't have a leg left to stand on.

There's not a second of my time on tour where I'm not engaged with something. It is the hardest job - a great job, and I love it - but truly the hardest job I've ever had. There's no time away, there's no time off, and it's so exhausting. I drive myself around in a van, and I don't have the money or infrastructure to do it differently, and I'm involved at every level. I feel like I'm just collecting info, and can't wait to get home to try and process these.

I don't think of music as being a competition - what I make is exactly what I want it to be for me, and it's not better or worse than anything else. I'm just trying to be the best at what I am, or that I possibly can be. And when I've done that, I feel incredibly confident and there's nothing anyone can see to dampen that, but I don't think that because it means something to me, it has to necessarily mean something to other people.

I will say this: it's important to work hard, but you have to know your limits. There's always another show, but if there's no "you"; if you have nothing left to give, nothing else happens. It all disappears.

I really like to plan and think ahead and put things in their place. I'm a bit of a control freak. In many ways, I have done myself a great service over the years in trying to loosen that a bit, and trying to learn how to be present and be comfortable with where I am in any particular moment, literally and figuratively. To try and find the joy and peace in any situation, even if I feel like I don't have a handle on where it is or where it's going.

There were a lot of times that I'd rather be hanging out with friends, or out at a show, but instead I stay home and work on music. It's important to me that I make a lot of work and have a lot of variety and change for myself, because of the kind of personality I have. I have to bring my best self and my best work to the table.

I'm lucky that I know so many people in the world, but it's also heartbreaking because I'm only one person, and I only have as much time as everyone else. For every choice I make about how to spend this time, there are a million somethings that have to go by the wayside.