The main thing in making your own music is that it's an expression of someone's personality and being. That's what people want to hear, and you can't really teach that - that's just something that comes out. Teaching just hones that.

I love making music so its important for me to keep doing that even if the schedule is busy.

Finding out that Ray Charles sang country songs but it sounded as soulful as any rhythm and blues record that kind of opened up my horizons for what songwriting was and what singers I could listen to.

Ive been more single than not in my short life.

With writing music and writing songs and recording music and coming up with stuff, you need to kind of reengage that kind of inner child to come up with interesting perceptions.

Jimi Hendrix came on TV on this documentary and it was this African-American soulful black guy, playing an electric guitar, which I'd just started. And it just blew my head off. I had like an afro at the time, too. It was a bit all over the place. And it wasn't a thing to have an afro. No, that's kind of quite old school. You're supposed to have like a neatly cut shaped up haircut.

I love grooves and dance music, but I like the feeling behind songs too.