The marketing is just as important as the music, almost.

You apply the skills you use to produce your own book to make an anthology. Shaping. Rhythm.

I wondered what things what things became when you no longer needed them, and I wondered what the future would hold once we'd gotten past our personal tragedies and proven them ultimately survivable.

Activists are cultural artists. They envision a world that does not yet exist, and then take action to create that world.'

Commercial music is music that a lot of people connect to at the same time, but that doesn't mean it has to be something shallow or without personality.

Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could be only moments away from disaster. That everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a moment when it will become extraordinary - a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen.

I always felt like I could combine good pop songs that are easy for people to like with a real person and a real mind and integrity. So maybe I bring people into that pop world who don't usually find themselves there because there's not enough stuff for them to get excited about otherwise. I try to be genuine. I try to be real. It's such a subjective thing, but I try to convey an emotion.