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Writing songs is really about writing. It's not about necessarily focusing on one particular style or making it one particular thing.

I see what other people do and what songwriters don't. They don't get out and take care of themselves. Producers turn themselves into a massive brand. Songwriters tend to be under someone else's umbrella. If you're building your own legacy, it can't be under an umbrella.

Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience.

I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio.

What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.

As an artist, you never want to write the same song again, you always want to challenge yourself to writing in a different way.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

I really like this trend of songwriting that is honest and intelligent and serious and longing.

A lot of songs are derivative of each other. Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.

Some people lose sense of what their music was when their life starts to get better.