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When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.

If you listen to most songs, most people will not sing the words of the lead singer. They will sing the hook. The hook is what makes the record sell.

Sometimes I'll have sections that I'm not quite sure how they fit in the puzzle of a tune, they'll get moved around; what I think was originally a verse ends up becoming the chorus, or what's an intro gets dropped as a hook, things get shifted around a lot.

There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.

I push myself in a lot of aspects when I write a song. I write a piece and where most people would stop and say, 'Oh, that's the hook right there,' I'll move that to the first four bars of the verse and do a new hook.

So the actual riffing came out of us just sitting there and doing it the way I think some people think we really did it, which is all spontaneously, and it really was.

If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.

Generally my songs are just some riffs slung together as an excuse for a guitar solo.

That's the best way to feed the human mind. That's how Bob Marley did it. He never put it in your face. After you got the groove, you were just singing the hooks, because you thought it was cool.

When the pastor's up there, they do this thing called looping. They are literally riffing and spitting in the key of the organ. When looping, you're in key, you're in a rhythm, you're in a pocket, and that's where James Brown was pulling from, and so that's where I'm pulling from. The only difference is I'm coming at it under hip-hop.