If [my son] had any pain in feeling that he couldn't express to me, that would hurt.

I look at my little ones and I love them so much. I think to myself, "By God, if my son is gay, it's not that he was turned or learned into it. My son, his soul, the way he was born ... this is him.

I'm fascinated by politics. I love watching everyone from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Lawrence Krauss to people like Richard Dawkins and Noam Chomsky on YouTube.

As I've gotten older and the world has gotten far more complicated .

It turns out that I'm far too schizophrenic musically for people to categorize me. I think people judge me a lot before they ever really know who I am.

As I look back, I understand what [the record company] was getting at. They were trying to market a record and make it as commercially acceptable as possible. It hurt me and my credibility with critics.

I was reading a Time magazine interview with an author named Brené Brown. She said, "People that fail seem to ultimately do the same thing they think works over and over again." I had an epiphany and called my manager and started a creed with my producers. I promised we'd do whatever was best for the song and the album - no ego would get in the way.