I just want to make music as long as I can and reach as many people as I can.

I grew up in the '80s and '90s listening to Public Enemy and Mobb Deep and the Smashing Pumpkins. I don't even know what it was like in the '60s - I wasn't alive then - so the Mayer Hawthorne sound is taking what I can learn from the classics, and blending it with my hip-hop DJ and producer background and punk-rock bands that I played in as a kid.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and I definitely have a hearty breakfast before I do anything.

That's one of the most important things to me is that Detroit and Ann Arbor got my back. If you don't have hometown love, then what's the point?

I'm trying to just drop so much music that people cannot ignore it.

I just want to have fun and party with everyone around the world. That's the only rule, to have fun.

I DJ all the time, as much as I possibly can. I'll never stop. That's my security blanket, that's what I'm good at. I still consider myself a better DJ than a singer. I can DJ in my sleep.