You'd think I'd have been happiest in my life playing music in front of 50,000 people at Gillette Stadium. But let me tell you, it's an odd feeling to feel alone in the spotlight.

As a songwriter, you're never off - for me, anyway. There's a certain mentality of people that decide, "Oh, we're going to try to write songs from this time of the day to this time of the day." Almost treat it like a real job. I can't do that. I've never been able to write songs like that. You never know when something creative is going to hit you, or emotion or whatever. You can take it, and turn it into something that makes somebody feel something. I love that about my job.

There were years of that stuff that will never leave me. Never. When the bus turned a million miles - that's a lot of traveling. It's really cool to think about. I'm blessed to have traveled a million miles on a tour bus.

I hate my smile. I always have, even in my school pictures when I was a little kid.

[Music] is the one thing that connects the dots in all kinds of ways. No matter how you were brought up, no matter what your religious background or political beliefs, people still love to sing along with somebody.

What you see is kinda what you get with me. I'm a very real person, or I hope to be, anyway. I don't have nothing to hide

When Obama talks about raising taxes on the rich, he's looking at me.