I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.

But huge photographs of dead bodies are slightly different. I couldn't find much humor there.

As far as in my adult life, it kinda started (with) writing first 'cause I went to school in Nashville. I mean, not Nashville but close to Nashville, and I met my managers in L.A. at a convention randomly. And then, it kinda just started from there. And then, I got my publishing deal.

I'm doing quite a lot of painting on stones - little funny fish and animals.

I decide immediately if I like a person and if I do, then I'm myself, and if I don't, then I give nothing.

Maybe you're a singer or not, but what taps into the soul leads to the heart, and that's really what I came away with, with the starting point for the record being that I could speak as a human being and feel things very deeply.

My father is actually a quarry man - he deals in stone. He also at one point had a lot of sheep, he owned a sheep farm, but primarily the family business was in stone.