A song is a song and a hit record can change a life.

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.

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.

It's a gift that I have and I became good at it. When I heard my first song I didn't even know that I could write songs.

Brandy is one of my favorite vocalists. Jay-Z is my favorite emcee outside of Biggie.

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.