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It's a marvelous feeling when someone says 'I want to do this song of yours' because they've connected to it. That's what I'm after.

Many times, people have come up to me after singing some songs, and they'd say, 'Richie, do you know what you did?' And I'd say, 'What?' And they'd go, 'I wrote these songs down for you to sing, and you sang them all in a row.' But that's the kind of communication that happens, you know.

I can't just make a song people can dance in a club to... it still has to be real.

There are a lot of musicians I've met on Twitter where it was like, 'Hey, I like your music' - and then I ended up meeting them and it turned into a friendship.

For your songs to connect with people, they've got to mean something to you.

I love knowing that people are connecting to my lyrics, my music and me.

I've done a song with almost everybody in the game.

People know my lyrics; they know the stuff I've written, and it's all about life, love, happiness, and these big euphoric moments. It would always bug me when I'd go to a club, and they're playing some chick on a stripper pole on the monitor behind me. I'm like, 'So that's not what I do - that's the other guy.'

Occasionally, you get a nice surprise when someone covers your song in an extraordinary way.

I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'