When I moved to L.A., I was penniless, absolutely beyond broke and in debt up to my eyeballs.

I'm in an odd position because I write across so many genres for so many people and they all influence me, and if I'm going to write as honest an album as possible, it's going to be layered.

Everything that kills me , makes me feel alive

There is maybe a cynicism because of my past as a writer.

I can go write an absolutely saccharine pop record with a really catchy lyric for another artist that could become a hit without meaning anything to me, but that's more the science laboratory, that's the other thing.

The only thing contrived is the production - you can over-produce to the point you kill a good idea, you can under-produce so that the song's amazing but you'll have folks at a radio station saying they won't play it, so there's this balance, and it has to be true.

The cool thing about writing music, writing anything, is that once you publish it, it's there forever.