I was a very good student until about sophomore year, and that's when I just became so disillusioned with the whole thing that I just became an awful student. I was still making good grades. But I was cutting class three days a week and faking papers that I got off the internet.

I'm swept along by larger forces out of my control.

I want a song that raises the hair on the back of my neck when I sing it live and I want to feel it every time.

My dad is obsessed with music, so I was raised around this guitar player that really wanted me to be a guitar player.

I dropped out of high school and I tried to go to community college for a little while. I can't be a student. I always hated that lifestyle.

The way Jacques Brel writes a story, getting into the character, bringing out all his faults and qualities in the same song.... Not that I could ever write in such an epic way, but it really is a different way to go about writing lyrics...and I find that quite inspiring.

I'm very flash and burn - the first thing that comes to mind is obviously the best idea, and that's because it should come out of a natural place, and if you don't do that then you're writing someone else's music, not your own.