I basically have needed to go to the piano and give voice periodically to, you know - I'm always afraid to describe it as a kind of therapeutic process, but nevertheless it was a type of unloading that had to occur due to my personal life with my mother's health or just my professional trials and tribulations.

I may not lead the most dramatic life, but in my brain it's 'War and Peace' everyday.

You get to a certain age, and you feel the need to reward yourself just for existing.

I definitely have a Luddite's approach to what's going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider.

I'm very fit on tour. I try to eat well, try to sleep. But it's still rock n' roll.

I very much faced my mother's death with hard, arduous and time-consuming labor. The more I would do, the less I would feel.

My love of classical hit pretty early. I was 13 when it occurred, and that was really the only music I listened to for many, many years. I went to a conservatory, but I always knew I would be in the pop world, because A) it was more fun and B) you didn't have to practice as much and you could go out more. But I immediately saw this opportunity to inject my material with these sounds that most members of my generation really didn't know about, so it was a great way to differentiate myself from the pack.