From a very young age, I was the kind of kid you can just put anywhere and I'd still find stuff to be stoked about.

While writing is a mystical process, it's also work. If you show up to work five days in a row, nobody's going to pat you on the back - everyone does that. Well, do that with your writing. Just show up. Be there for it. When you get an idea, write it down somewhere and then be a steward of that idea.

I just started writing stuff to kill time on summer evenings. This is why I'm always telling people who ask me what they need to do to succeed to give up, do something else.

I know it's a cliché to say I write for myself, but I write for myself.

I think taking too long to work on a record you sort of lose some of the feeling, so I write as fast as I can; it's just this manic phase where I'm by myself and or on tour and I write and I write. And I send them to the guys, and we start planning our studio ventures.

As an artist, you always have to be growing. You don't just want to do what you already know people like.

It's impossible to be content all the time - you have to learn to be content in places where you're unhappy and owning your emotions, whatever they are.