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

When you're around enormously successful people you realise their success isn't an accident - it's about work.

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.

Any time you have a song that is directly connected to a very specific musical trend of the moment, you have immediately cut it off at the knees, doesn't matter if it goes to number one in the world, if you're too attached to a production style.

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

I think often times if a guitar riff is centered around the chorus or if it follows the chorus, then it often times turns into the actual hook.

I started selling corn dogs, ended up in the music industry. That's how it all started.