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The choruses are important for me. I want to say something, and sing-along is great.

The hits always wind up being the songs with big, high choruses. They're the ones too high to sing every night - not that you'll ever, ever hear me complain about having to try.

The first thing that inspires any song is a chord progression. When I have one I really like, I get into the lyrics even more.

I always like a good song: puts me in a good mood.

On 'Idol,' I understood that everyone wanted to hear my vocals, so I stuck with the ballads.

I seem to be drawn to the really romantic songs.

I've always loved the mixture of crushing live drums with a programmed groove, that really cool blend, like in the verse there's a really funky drum beat that is programmed then it comes in to the chorus; you've got that enormous human feel where the band kicks in.

All of our songs take these really big creative turns and twists throughout the process, so sometimes songs will start out as a melody or some musical chord progressions.

I've written probably over 200 songs that have a verse and a chorus and that's it.