I would rather put out two year-defining songs a year than flood the market with eight or nine songs.

I knew I could make money from songwriting, so how much and when was not really the question.

So for every day that you're on this earth, for every minute that you have, the whole idea is doing nothing less than exactly what you feel you're supposed to do and squeezing every last drop out of life every day, regardless of the difficulties or trials that you face.

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.

I think the true test of a pop song, for me, and I've talked to a lot of other writers about this, is you take your demo, you pop it in your car and you drive down Sunset Blvd. to Santa Monica, and that's the Hollywood car test.

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

I'm not interested in corporate magic or fame.