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I'd listen to all the stuff that was going on around me and drift off into my fantasies about it. My fantasies have fuelled all the songs I've ever written.

I base my track-listing and what songs I pick by what my fans expect from me and what they want and what I think they want.

I'd written songs with lots of people, from one spectrum to the other.

I would find myself, not necessarily always assigning these little bits of music for here or there, but all of a sudden something would fall into place and it would be exactly that.

I have this idealistic and maybe naive thought that almost any song can be anything. If you record one song today, it would maybe be exciting and cool. But I could record the same song next week and it would be something completely different.

I never know if a song's going to be popular so I don't select them with that in mind. All I can do is follow my heart and my gut and go for songs that make me feel great.

I would make far more money if every song were my own, but I don't write to fill up the album with my songs.

Although I'm a huge fan of Ben Kweller, I don't think I'd cover one of his songs, simply because there's just so much of my own stuff I wanna do.

I have endless playlists on my iPod so will throw on, say, Bruce Springsteen or The Smiths, depending on what kind of day I'm going to have.

Music was never just a hobby for me. I'd pick up a guitar every day to work on whatever I was writing at the time. I would put my ideas in songs the way some people might put them in diaries or journals.