Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me, I like writing songs that move me, and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really, really heavy music.

There are times when I want to be plainspoken about my feelings in a song. But there are other times when it's really good to try and get my head around different kinds of song structures, or maybe I might get turned on by trying to write a song that would fit in this one scene in a movie. And by the end of all this, you just end up with a bunch of different ideas. And songs are really just ideas.

Maybe I am a jerk sometimes. Maybe I'm not. I think most people are kind of a jerk once in a while.

I routinely never discuss my marriage. It's nice to have things in my life that are totally mine.

While you can fill every heart as your own full of laughter loud as gold and passion quick as silver.

It was never my first choice to be a singer/guitar player. I really wanted to play drums.

Music is my thing. It's my thing; it's what I love. It's what I do. It's football to me; it's Christmas to me; religion to me; poetry to me.