I love being able to say a quick thanks to the man above for the music and the fact that we're even in this spot. If you'd told me this in college when I was sitting on a stool and playing for enchiladas and tips, I'd have bet everything against it.

So yeah, it's nothing that I'm doing on purpose, I just think that the more records, the more songs that I write, the more records that I make, you're obviously going to fall into a specific style and thank God it's a style that people are into.

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.

Now I'm a symbol of what to be and how hard to work. I have heads of major labels say, "I wish you could teach our artists how to do it." At one point I was the punching bag of what not to be, and now I'm the model of what to be.

I'm proud of the fact that I'm at a point in my career that if I want to take a little bit of a left turn and make an album that is more hushed, more acoustic and more personal, that I can do it.

I'm dating a girl who's pretty levelheaded. She's a nurse. She's a real, normal girl. Which is what I need because my life isn't normal.

I don't think I ever feel sexy. I don't think that's for me to decide, if I'm sexy or not.