When you're an artist, you can only do your own stuff. Even if you only write for other people, you're really more focused on yourself. So while everybody's out touring, I'm working on records.

I feel like all of my records have potential to be hits. Sometimes it's promotion, sometimes it's bad timing, but yeah I take it very personally. I'm very hard on myself when it comes to my records. I really believe that if it's not number one, I've failed.

It takes a different mindset to be successful in anything; that's why there's not a lot of super duper successful people, because it's guys I know who may be ten times more talented than me, but they don't work as hard.

AC/DC, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper - I learned stories of all these guys. That's when I fell in love with Queen, which is one of my favorite bands of all time... I started paying attention to what made music good. I started paying attention to why I liked it.

I really was kind of like a musical nerd. I would watch VH1's 'Behind The Music.' That was heavy when I was a kid. I would sit up and want to watch that all day instead of going outside sometimes.

I don't take off as many days as most other producers and songwriters, so I'm working every single day, and I do songs every day. So it's just about finding time, scheduling, getting in and cutting the records. I make it happen and that's the name of the game. It's no excuses - you gotta figure it out.

I really want to work with Rufus Wainwright. Michael Stipe from R.E.M. I would love to work with Kanye West.