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There's a lot of personal stuff that can go into songwriting but there's also a lot of dramatization and fictionalization. You have to do that to make a good song.

When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want.

In order for me to write, I have to experience life. I write the songs based on real life, and I perform them from a very real place.

Songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

I'm usually really drawn to a song, and I know it would be good to cover if it sounds like something that I could write, or I wished I could write. Sometimes a writer just sounds like they're in your head, and that is really cool for me.

The actual writing of a song usually comes in the form of a realisation. I can't contrive a song.

There's a lot of craft that goes into achieving a hit song - at the beginning of your career, you're usually more inspiration than craft, and you get great when those intersect. A skilled songwriter can get you to that intersection.

You have to live what you write, or you have to know it. There are exceptions, like story songs, where you just have to have your facts straight. But I think you don't have to live a hard life to be a good or interesting songwriter.

When I write a song, it is to fill a niche in people's lives. To have a song for every experience if one hadn't been written yet.