Obviously the biggest change is that it's me by myself. When you don't have another band interpreting your songs or playing them the way that they have, it's bound to sound different.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Music changes, and I'm gonna change right along with it.
I found my sound early on. Look at U2: they haven't changed their music for 20 years. Anyway, many people come unstuck when they try to change what they do and what they are known for.
Music used to change people's minds - and it still changes mine.
The same song can have drastically different feels and personalities just by changing some minor things. A different drumbeat or some vocal overdub could completely transform the song.
When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different.
So, I just kind of played the way I played and then eventually we kind of figured out what worked best for the band. So, I definitely changed my stuff up and I think we're playing really tight now.
When I look at the majority of my own songs they really came from my own sense of personal confusion or need to express some pain or beauty - they were coming from a universal and personal place.
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.
I could never change the overall feel of my music. That's why people like me - I don't follow trends, and I don't follow crowds.
The music speaks for itself. You either like it or you don't, or you're somewhere in between. That doesn't change whether I'm in the band or not.