I don't think there is anything hard at all about having a lot of songs. It makes it easier to be less precious about them, and know that everybody's going to want to work on some of them.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I work hard at that, but the fact that there are a lot of good songs means there are also a lot of really bad songs I've written that you never hear.
Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music.
Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.
So it's not so much that I set out to do something different, it's just that the songs themselves require their own individual voice and attention.
Sometimes I don't go into the studio for quite a while because I haven't found enough good songs. They have to have a certain caliber and connect with me because I'm going to be playing them for the rest of my life. I start off with a circle of friends whose songs I love anyway.
There's a saying, 'It's easy to write songs, but very difficult to write great songs.' I'm going through that right now.
Songwriting is hard - it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.
If certain songs become popular enough to the point where I'll be playing them the rest of my life, I don't want them all to dwell on the same down moment that I'll have to keep reliving.
I don't just want to sing about simplistic things all the time. It's good to have a mix of songs that have a real depth, and that provoke and challenge people, and then songs that are fun and people can enjoy.
It's frustrating to do albums that you think are worth listening to, but it's just so difficult to cut through.