I never assumed I would have that commercial success, so it was a total surprise. And honestly, I never assumed that it would ever happen again.
Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs.
Love's a recurring theme through my work.
When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it.
I love living in California and being able to go to the beach or go to the woods.
I learn all these things about the record talking about it after it's finished.
I often write either really early in the morning, or really late at night.
I'm not sure if the next song I write is going to be about love or a song about a tree.
Now love's the only thing that's free /We must take it where it's found /Pretty soon it may be costly
I really love playing music with other people. It's more fun to be on the road with others. It's kind of lonely out there when you play on your own!
I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about.
I see some recurring themes: things that feel threaded together, some symbolic references, and songs about some of the big questions, like death. There are a lot of references to weather, too!
With other people, you're always swapping music. Somebody is always listening to something you've never heard. It's a great way to hear all sorts of new things.
My old man's got a problem, he lives with the bottle.
I found myself in the middle of a race riot when I was about 14 years old, and I found someone pointing a gun at me and telling me to run or they'd shoot me.
A lot of kids spent more time out of school than in, but I always loved school and thought it was my way out of Cleveland, and out of poverty.
The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together.
I got a plan to get out of here, I've been working at a convenient store.
As a child I always had a sense of social conditions and political situations. I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me - also because I read a lot.
I think many people would say that writers like Stephen King have hypergraphia.
Some things remain fragments, just the lyrics and melodies or a line or two or a verse.
My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it.
I'm still thinking and hoping there's an opportunity for people to have better lives and that significant change can occur.
Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin.
Who took away the part so essential to the whole Left you a hollow body Skin and bone.
I meet people in my daily life, people who seem to experience some change and some growth on a personal level, and that gives me hope.
I dressed up as a veterinarian for a Halloween costume party. I had the lab coat. I got a couple of stuffed animals for patients and put bandages on them.
I think it's important, if you are an artist, to use your music to stand up for what you believe in.
Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control.
I'm never sure if I'll ever write another song, what the song will be about and if what initially sparked the beginning of a song might complete it.
