I don't think the emotional quality is the defining quality of the music but it's definitely something that people have picked up on a lot

I think you have to want to be really famous. It's a lot easier to sabotage your career than to have a career to sabotage.

Songwriting is reliant on inspiration, which ideally you don't have that much control over. Songs kind of half make themselves, and then you have to finish them.

There's this idea, particularly in pop music and a lot of these pop father/manager types, that you're selling the person instead of the song. You basically want to create something that the fans relate to because it's exactly like them. So there's a lot of art that's made to be in the image of the audience, but then the audience is imitating this version of themselves. It's a really weird cultural feedback loop, and it's kind of strange to watch. It's a new thing since I was a kid, really a different thing.

Whenever you do anything or say anything, you're opening yourself up to criticism. But that's okay.

A lot of stuff is dark in a way, but unless you're really looking at a situation for what it actually is, it's hard to be hopeful - or meaningless to be hopeful about it unless it's actually based in a real possibility.

Major labels just lost their way. It's like the housing bubble. They lost a sense of the fundamentals.