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 sure that's every adolescent's complaint about their home town. When a city is unstimulating, you get pretty isolated.

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.

You always know when a real inspiration is behind the melody, arrangements, even lyrics. And I know that's really vague, but it's true.

I can't work in Brooklyn. Unless I'm completely locked away in a studio, there's just too much distraction and stimulation.

I became very aware of what I was used to relying on, almost tricks. It's funny because I could feel myself creating a formula and sticking with it and I just told myself, 'That's not me, that's not really how I am, god forbid I have developed a formula - it's music; songwriting.' It's heretic, honestly, in the church of music, so I had to unwind a few tricks in order to get past it.

It's funny because you do often read in recounts of very famous albums, people tend to focus on mistakes in really positive ways, and there's certain mistakes of my own that I always do find on every record that I needed to accept. I find it really interesting to talk about. I always write songs at the wrong tempos, and I have to learn to accept that a little bit.