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I do pay performance royalties on others' songs I perform live, but I'm not recording these songs and putting them up for sale.

It's typical for video customers to often use licensed music - whether a soundtrack, background music, or sound effects - to complement their video projects.

When I started making my own records, I had this idea of drowning out the singer and putting the rest in the foreground. It was the background that interested me.

There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.

Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.

When I was releasing EPs by myself, I was generating royalties. And when I signed, I thought I'd put those royalties into other artists. And interestingly, streaming is most of the income for those artists.

I do work a lot. I mean, most of my income, I would say, comes from live performances. And then you've got publishing, you've got record royalties.

With music, you're working with a producer, and you walk out of the studio six hours later with a track that's almost completely finished. There's an almost immediate payoff.

It's a real wrenching thing to go from being a private person to being a public person, especially when you're being autobiographical. But it's what everyone wants - to get everyone's attention, to have your music make a living for you, to be validated in that way.