I don't mind critics. I mean, I wrote for Rolling Stone for a hot minute. I like criticism. I enjoy criticism. The thing I don't like is cruelty for cruelty's sake. You don't have to be a jerk to say something negative. You can say something in the negative sense and have class.

All of the agreed-upon pariahs throughout pop-culture history put their identities into the thing we decry. And yet we derive our own identities from the act of hating. We connect on the things we are disappointed in. Some may argue that nothing in history gathers a crowd like complaining about Lady Gaga's meat dress.

Advice? Focus on the craft. Study the greats. Try and understand how and why they made the writing choices they did. Then, start by copying them...just as an exercise. See if you can do similar things. Learn how to write a song like so and so. Then, when you've done that, write a song like yourself. Learn to color within the lines before going outside them.

My bucket list is pretty much checked off. But oh, we should play in space! Let's do that. We'll play in space, up on a satellite somewhere.

American Suiteheart I must confess Im in love with my own sins

I don't want names, but you have to have bumped into some pretty nasty artists with pretty big chips on their shoulders. I'd like an anecdote about the most obnoxious personality you had the misfortune of working with, albeit as anonymously as you feel comfortable divulging.

He's writing what I'm singing, and I'm writing what he's playing.