I went every Sunday to church when I was growing up, and I think that music had an affect on me before my memory can recall.

It was endlessly amusing to me to try to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney's harmonies using the guitar.

When I first started making music, it was learning other peoples songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.

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.

Even though someone has died, a piece of their spirit can still be alive. That's an exciting world for me to take music into, or to attempt to do that.

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

I got into one Metallica record. That was about it. I never got into AC/DC or Black Sabbath or any of that. I was interested in the side of heavy metal that had interesting guitar ideas, but that was a very short-lived thing.