I write one step at a time, always finishing off the part I'm working on before even thinking about the next part. I need to hear it all together before deciding what goes next. I even mix before moving on...in other words, I write by recording.

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

As a teenager and a young adult, I never felt like my own story was interesting enough to tell, so I always wrote lyrics from someone else's perspective - told someone else's story.

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.

As much as I try to grow as a lyricist, I tend to laugh at even calling myself that, because I think that my actual talents lie more in arrangements than they do words.

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

I try to shut my brain down as much as possible. And let the melodies flow, if possible.