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.

I don't want to be George Lucas and go back after the fact.

We wanted to wait until the music felt right. We didn't want to do it, just to do it. We didn't want to do it for money, I guess, is the thing that would have just bummed me out so much.

I don't mind if someone thinks I'm a sell out. I go to bed happy knowing I do what I do and I'm not doing anything for reasons of money, and if I were trying to pick up chicks, I'm doing a horrible job. And if I wanted to drive awesome cars, I'm doing a really bad job there too.

I am genuinely into soul, R&B and hip hop - all these genres that get slapped under the 'soul' genre. That spoke to me more than it did to my punk-rock friends. And punk spoke more to me than it did to my soul friends. I basically didn't fit comfortably in either world.

There's a certain fear of simplicity. I think that's the thing when you're younger as an artist you get this idea in your head that complexity equals quality. The more notes you're playing, the better.

Good music is good music, regardless of where it comes from. I think that's a really important thing to carry with you.