Every day of your life, you change the world. Absolutely, yes, we're out to change the world. I mean, you change it whether you like it or not. You wake up and you talk to the grocer. You either kick your dog or you pet him. There's a million decisions you have every day where you change the world.

I look for places where there's no one out on the water. I'd rather surf a wave to myself than fight a crowd.

Music is mere tuning a song with words; to some degree you have a beautiful endeavor of cosigning God's blank checks and you're actually co-creating. You're certainly not the creator with the capital C, but you're embarking on an endeavor, you're using the building blocks that have been given to you by the author of time and space.

The song can be a little bit more of the mystery and leave the whole thing open ended. But there's something really gratifying about saying exactly what you mean.

My best sunsets are always going to be in my home town, San Diego. Watching the sunset from the Pacific knowing that you're sleeping in your own bed, there's something special about that.

It's really hard to fit a complex idea into a 3-minute pop song. And when you're dealing with issues that you're passionate about, usually they have various levels. And within a poem, you can get around the issue of space, and in a song the same way, by simply leaving holes and alluding to what you're talking about.

Music is a handshake where I, as a songwriter, am only part of the equation. I love that, the fact that you can make the song your own.