My mother's songs are really turning out to be masterpieces. I have inherited this incredible legacy and am so fortunate to bathe in her sensibilities. It is tinged with tragedy. I'd much rather she was here in person, but there is still a positive force to come out of her death and that is having the gift of music that she gave.

I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.

Climate change has always been sort of my main focus. I think also with [what happened in Fukushima, Japan] there's still a lot to think about in terms of what's coming down the pike into the world's oceans, too.

My mother had a lot of parties when I was a child. There'd always be a moment when she would place me on the upright piano and have me sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

I do not consider myself a guitar player. My father is a guitar player - I'm not.

I think everybody identified at a pretty young age that I was fairly entranced with myself. And that I had to be tempered.

I've developed a bit of a fascination with John Denver. I always thought he was kind of tacky and somewhat revolting and had a kind of simplistic weirdness, but on second listen, he actually did have an incredible voice, and the blatant naiveté of his work is straight-edge, in a way.