I had to do this album. I tried thinking, "I'm not going to do it." But then I'm sitting there getting all suicidal and depressed, and I just start writing. It's like this inner drive. If I could choose, I would probably be living in the countryside and be fine with that, but I'm not.

I can cry myself to sleep because I'm not as great as Leonard Cohen, but who cares? Maybe you can't be as great as some people, but it's a tragedy when you don't follow your dreams.

I don't necessarily love all the collaborations that I've done; the more I work with other people, the more I realize that I want to work with myself.

I relate to hustlers who want to get out of where they are and create something different for themselves.

It's not a very sane thing to try to be great all the time. You want to make something magical; you want to make something wonderful; you want to give to everybody; you want to heal people; you want to still be inspired. That's not easy.

I dove into the craziness and did things that maybe I would think twice about when I get older.

Do you have to have emotional turmoil to create music? I'm not sure because I've never been without it