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I think that when you're making your way up in the music industry, you have all these heroes and the reasons why they are your heroes. As soon as you get into the industry, your guidelines change a little bit. For me, my heroes now are great people first and great artists second.

If you want to be a legend, God help you, it's so easy. You just do one thing. You can be the master of suspense, say. But if you want to be as invisible as is practical, then it's fun to do a lot of different things.

I think the most important thing for an artist is to stay true to who you are. I want to stay as authentic as possible, as that's how we're going with our team.

Any time you're stepping out on a limb as an artist, it's scary, especially when you have a lot of success. When you're reaching a lot of people, the masses, it's easy to stay in that niche, you know? Especially when you're making a lot of money and you know there's a formula, it's easy to stay in that rut.

I am uncompromising to the point of huge dissension in the studio. And it's served me very well. My theory and my philosophy is, 'Compromise breeds mediocrity.' Obviously, you have to pick your battles, and the more success an artist has, the more they want to be involved in their own career, which is not necessarily a good thing.

To get to record and to do things with the legends, and with the people that are your musical heroes, that's the biggest honor as an artist.

If I get to be a legend, I've achieved my goal.

I always aimed at being a legend.

I want to do that. That's my goal. I want to become a legend.

When people see a legend, they call it a legend. But to be a legend, it's a lot of hard work and patience. You can't play for five or ten years and be a legend. It takes longer than that.