My mother's side of the family is from the Bahamas, and I spent time there on and off when I was growing up. It's the place where I feel at peace.

People feel they have to live that stereotypical lifestyle in order to be a rock star. You don't have to shoot heroin and act a certain way to be a rock and roll musician.

I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head. I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs...A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really. A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.

It's like a dream to come to Spain and stay for a couple of years and get somebody to teach me Spanish music.

You can be around 100 people and be completely alone. People don't realize what it's really like.

My mother always told me to embrace both sides of my background. And she also taught me one very useful thing when I was going to first grade. She said, "You're Bahamian and African-American on one side, and Russian-Jewish on the other. You're no more one than the other, and it's beautiful that you have all this. It makes your life all the more rich. But society will see you only as black."

I want to do interiors, furniture. I want to do architecture, although I'm not an architect. Nor am I a trained interior designer.