I realize I have made a lot of mistakes and done things wrong. I've done things I wish I could have done in another way. I didn't come in with the same kind of desperation that I may have had on the first or second record. I didn't come in thinking, 'Oh God, please. I hope this does well because I have nothing else and I worked so hard at this.'

You want to be commercially successful and critically acclaimed. But the truth is, there's only a few Bruce Springsteens and Paul McCartneys out there.

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.

The artist that had the biggest impact on me was Michael Jackson. He was my Elvis and Beatles. When I was 15, I listened to a lot of Sinatra, but my jean jacket didnt have, I love Frank on it, it had, I love AC/DC, Guns N Roses, Pearl Jam. I thought Eddie Vedder was the second coming.

I am a candid interview and I have a dark and dry sense of humor - a very Canadian sense of humor and I am only learning now stupidly that you can't read tongue. When I say something funny in a newspaper and I meant it to be funny, it doesn't read that way.

I get to study and I got to mimic and what I basically did was I stole from every person that I could steal from. I was an imitator. That's what I was. It was years before I could take all of these things that I loved about all of these different artists and put them together and find my voice.

I realize I have made a lot of mistakes and done things wrong. I've done things I wish I could have done in another way. I didn't come in with the same kind of desperation that I may have had on the first or second record. I didn't come in thinking, 'Oh God, please. I hope this does well because I have nothing else and I worked so hard at this.'