When I'm not touring, I hardly ever leave my house. Part of it is I get to do what I'm most passionate about, which is work on music and make new songs.
I love pop music, but I love pop music that does something a little bit different.
I guess music, particularly the blues, is the only form of schizophrenia that has organised itself into being both legal and beneficial to society.
I'm very much a traditionalist, but I think it's important to know about tradition so that you can evolve the music you are deciding to make.
Shania Twain brought a whole other fan base to country music with her sound, the way the videos were produced.
A short story can be really interesting and enriching and powerful, but a novel just contains so much more information and richness and depth. That's what I strive for in my music. I want to create something that's like a longform statement.
Most of the people who write pop music were outsiders at some time in their life.
I blub all the time, in the most weird situations - not in the ones that should make me cry. Music makes me very emotional.
So when I got to be about 13 or 14, I started listening - even though my parents music was way cool - to contemporary hard rock at that time, which was Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Ted Nugent and all that, and that's just where I came from.
In music, the punctuation is absolutely strict, the bars and rests are absolutely defined. But our punctuation cannot be quite strict, because we have to relate it to the audience. In other words we are continually changing the score.
I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.
If you're concentrating so damn hard on a piece of mathematics or a musical - a piece of music or a piece of art, the restraint that holds the rest of - the rest of the world back off and vanishes in the rest of your life.
I've been making demos at home for many albums now. So over those years, I've learned how to record music, and I love being at home. I excel when I can make things at home.
I think that the process of making music is a hard one to describe as well.
The beauty of music is that everyone hears it their own way, and every song you hear leaves an impression on you that alters the way you hear everything from that point on.
Jazz, for me, is a closed circuit, like the term baroque in the world of classical music.
When I write music, I know a lot of artists like Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran tend to write from personal experience. I write from personal experience, of course, but I don't limit myself to that.
The act of conducting in itself, of waving my arms in the air and being in charge, I didn't miss. I missed the sensual pleasure of being in contact with music.
Even before Europe was united in an economic level or was conceived at the level of economic interests and trade, it was culture that united all the countries of Europe. The arts, literature, music are the connecting link of Europe.
Classical, Romantic, and Baroque music, that's what I really like.
I had to learn chord shapes. I bought books with chord charts. I used to listen to all kinds of pop music.
Basically, radio hasn't changed over the years. Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience.
For me, the music dictates the melody. Give me a riff to sing over, you know?
If the artists would just keep hammering away - unify, stick together - then music will become the king again, which is what it should be.
Being in a band with my wife, I'm very aware of the multitude of ways that can go wrong. We're best friends and are interested in the same things, so it's natural to make music together.
Records are just moments of achievement. They're like receipts for work done. Time goes on and people keep playing music.
If I were a doctor, I would prescribe that you addict yourself deeply and irrevocably to music and never, ever seek cure outside of more music. It really is the best drug available.
When reality television really hit, I just had a backlash towards reality. It seemed like a cheap way to make a product. And then when music reality and 'Idol hit,' I just didn't watch it, it seemed novelty. And of course the story of 'Idol,' this is one of the greatest stories in television history.
I really wanted to make the worst thing: the thing that even people who liked bad, terrible music wouldn't like - the stuff that people would ignore, always. Something really, really stupid. Something that is destined for failure.
I want to be somebody, a person, first that people remember, but also, I want music that I release to still be around. I don't want it to just be cool for a second and be gone.
Lean your body forward slightly to support the guitar against your chest, for the poetry of the music should resound in your heart.
I thought I'd use music to confront the problems that I faced, and it helped. I found a more healing mindset, and it did rejuvenate me.
You go through the Civil Rights struggle, everybody knew the songs - 'We shall overcome.' Everybody would sing it. Music helped us. James Brown, 'Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud.' They helped black people figure out how to navigate what was a very treacherous place in America for them.
I like pop music, and I like really weird, strange stuff. It just didn't feel like there was anyone doing both.
I actually prefer soothing music - and maybe that's the skater in me.
Playing shows is really fun. And writing music is really fun. But going on tour for a year is one of the more soul-crushing experiences you can have as a creative person.
