I'm supposed to make people cry, but not by manipulating.

You see things differently at 40 than you do at 31. Especially if you got to 40 the way I did.

Actually, in its purest form, Islam is incredibly tolerant. That makes what's going on in the world really bizarre.

Part of it is, I think, just to let people know you've got a record out there and that you're still alive requires more work than it used to, because the traditional radio, bug chains of record stores, all of that, that doesn't exist anymore.

I don't spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, trying to compare how many records I've sold or how much money I've made.

I wasn't raised to not write about issues, and I'm just living in really politically charged times. You know, I'd rather write songs about girls, but it's just hard to do right now.

I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know.