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I was a different person before I started to write. When I realized I could be a songwriter and that people would listen - that was when I started feeling good in my life.

I learned that the songs that mean the most to me are the songs that I write by myself. While there were people I wrote really well with, particularly Gary Nicholson and Delbert McClinton, and I really enjoyed the experience, I came away from it feeling like I need to write by myself.

I've always written songs, even when I wasn't doing anything with my personal life in music.

I realized that I started writing songs to make people feel how I felt, rather than just making them feel something. That's not the way I should do things.

I just write songs whenever I feel like it, whenever they come to me.

My identity started developing through the songs I was writing.

I'd say most of my songs I write from personal experience. When I feel like I don't have any inspiration in my personal life, I think about others that are close to me and maybe what they're going through or even just people I've come across, acquaintances.

Even when I don't think I'm writing, I'm writing. There's some part of my brain geared toward making songs up, and I know it's collecting things and I know when I get a moment to be by myself, that's when they come out.

I got into writing music when I was, like, 14 or 15. It was a very private thing for me because I used it as an outlet and emotional release. I kept it very close to myself and didn't tell too many people about it.