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'The Voice' is not just a singing competition. It really comes down to how you come off as a person and how you connect with America with your story, and being relatable to people.

My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words.

I sing in five or six different voices that are all part of me. It's not contrived.

As society changes, as politics change, as people change, certain songs still seem to resonate.

I've always felt that the quality of the voice is where the real content of a song lies. Words only suggest an experience, but the voice is that experience.

My music appeals in America. There is less of the purist criticism I get here. And to be a hit in the U.S... what singer doesn't have that dream?

Every song asks to be sung in a different way.

More and more people are finally realizing that in the heart of America, there's all this incredible music that wasn't widely heard before because it wasn't in the interest of those who feel they have to control the taste of the wider public.

We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.

There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical, questioning and often angry patriotism.