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My approach is so simple; every song I sing, every story I tell, every move I make, must move the audience to laughter, tears, or inspiration. Otherwise, why do it? It's the communication.

No matter what as an artist that's always what you want to do, you want to connect to the audience, you want to be able to send whatever message it is that you're singing about, you want to be able to convey that - and not make them feel - you want them to feel it, you want them to feel what you feel.

That's the perfect audience: singing along to every word, knowing the songs, appreciating the non-hit songs, stuff like that.

Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I'm trying to do more. When I'm singing, I don't want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling.

I don't think shoving my butt into people's faces will tell them anything about who I am. How is that connecting to your audience? What is that doing for your music?

You have to respect your audience. Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself.

My audience is a huge part of my success, so I see us as a team. They send me tons of song requests every day. Some of the songs I've never heard before, but I listen to them and then pick the ones that I love.

It feels like the more I'm out there in the public eye, the more criticism I get. You need to have confidence - that's what it takes to walk out there and sing a song in front of a huge group of people.

I want people to understand me as a person with views, not just performing songs.

How does my music connect to an audience? That is just a complete mystery to me.