Contemplation: I read a lot of books on philosophy and religion, and try to keep always growing in that part of my life, because without having a spiritual grounding, I think you can get really swayed by the winds of all the praise or the criticism; it's all very, kind of, up and down. Try to stay up and focused.

Yeah, letting go - even just musically, aside from emotionally - I find that quite challenging. Knowing the right time for letting go of my album, for instance, was a really big challenge. Knowing when to put the red flags up and say, "It's done..." And also, emotionally, with relationships.

I do like the idea of pulling in different producers to get new perspectives. That's what I did with Vows and I feel it just gives variety and makes for a more exciting journey for the listener.

I think the more that I can find myself getting out of the way - like you said yourself - trying to get out of thinking too much, and sometimes something truly special can happen. That's the beautiful mystery of song writing - that you really don't know where these songs come from exactly, and you don't know how you came up with them - and god bless it that you should have the gift of channeling that.

America is definitely something I'm pretty excited about.

When you work on an album for three and a half years, you're kind of ready for it to get out there. To have your songs reach people.

But for me I think it's just about taking that time of reflection and contemplation. That's probably my process in every decision that I make: to make sure that I spend time just with myself, and really times of silence and mediation to go through that process; and music is a big part of that as well.