The production process has a great way of bringing songs to light and that's a big part of it.

If I'm writing... even a piece of a song... I write it down. If it still resonates six months down the line, a year, even five, those are the ones you put in your bag and you take to the studio. You come to realize, the ones that don't make it, they were only meant to live for that moment in your notebook or on the 4-track-and plenty of songs never get any farther than the 4-track.

I get annoyed with movies or books, songs or records that deliberately try to make you feel a certain way.

When I was about 15, I picked up the guitar and learned how to play by going through Beatles chords books. I got this Christmas gift with the entire Beatles catalog.

I'm somebody who gets a lot of inspiration from dreams.

I like using concrete imagery, but I don't feel that's what it's about. It's a combination of concrete and abstract to take the listener somewhere they know better than you. That's true for music, seeing a painting, watching a movie... it's all some kind of an escape.

My philosophy for producing a record is for everyone involved, including myself, to get out of the way of the song, and at the same time, listen to it as closely as you can, and listen to where the song wants to go.