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Before you worry about what genre it is, about whether it's a loop or a drum, it's about what suits the song. It's using what's within your reach, but also reaching for everything you can. I don't know if I always get it right, because I don't know every sound yet.

When you listen to my music, you hear that there are all these voices going on in different parts of the song. That's because I was always around so many voices in church.

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

It's a particular skill, I think, doing backing vocals. You're blending the vocals between the gaps, between the music.

I think often times if a guitar riff is centered around the chorus or if it follows the chorus, then it often times turns into the actual hook.

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.

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.

The way that we imitate each others' riffs is something that other bands don't do as much. If we're jamming with a jazz band, or I am jamming with a jazz band, I have to catch myself, the tendency is always to do that.

In church, they have the music where you jump and you shout, you know, and then you have the quiet music where you're sitting, you're meditating.

When I was a kid, during those days, you couldn't use instruments. It was against the pastor's religion, so all the singers would make these instruments with their voices. It was just unbelievable. I couldn't explain it.