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You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they're not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don't care about money, and that's not my problem.

There's a bunch of people who sit around and make excuses for themselves and get upset with artists, but you already know what this is - it's an ego-driven business.

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.

Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music.

I don't understand business minds. I consider myself an artist, and they just really don't mix.

Nowadays, with the state of the music business, for any artist, whether you're up-and-coming or you've been in it for awhile, you have to explore different revenues and different ways of expressing yourself.

You don't make any money being an artist. Writing and producing? You get your money from that. You live comfortable.

Dealing with those personalities and the people who run this music thing has been most challenging. It's hard to really communicate things to people who run a business yet forget the nature of the business. They only look at the bottom line and the financial return, you know, they forget what it is they're packaging. It's art.

You see so many artists who are so talented end up living sad, empty lives. This industry takes so much out of you that without the accountability and leaving God in the center, you can be left so empty and void.

Artists shouldn't deal with business stuff; that's not what we're trained in, and most of us aren't good at it.