There are things that I value now that I didn't when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.

Girlfriend and 100 Percent Fun were my two peeks, around '92 and '96. The reality is that the times I had the most media success, sold lots of records and played bigger shows, I had the least control of my own life.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

It became a question of do I want to be on a label where it could take three years to put out a record instead of putting out three records over the same period of time on my own.

It wasn't so much that I had to leave to make it in the music business as I was curious to be out on my own and sort of explore. I never felt that where I was ever influenced my songwriting.

The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him.

Creativity is much better when it's free. Someone can take it and sell it if that's what it needs, and from that standpoint, you have to have a label. If you could make your music and just give it away and somehow make a living - that would be the best scenario.