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I was a different person before I started to write. When I realized I could be a songwriter and that people would listen - that was when I started feeling good in my life.

I like to write songs about what's happening, what I see around me and what I hear. Everyday life. Someone may be talking to me and I may take it from that.

I write a tiny fraction of what I used to write. My only job used to be to just write songs, and that was a really nice job to have, but only a tiny amount of people heard those songs, and I didn't make a living from it, and eventually I begged my parents to let me move back into my room.

I went to 13 schools in 12 years. We moved all over the place. Music was the only thing that I could get behind... I wasn't that good at socializing. I'm still not.

I started out life as a writer, and writers write in part because they don't want to talk.

Writing songs helped me figure out how to communicate with other people. I finally figured out that if I could express something in a song, I could probably express it in my real life, too.

I never was one to go into an office and write. For one thing, I had a job. I was cleaning the ashtrays and setting up the studios at Columbia for a couple of years and working every other week down in the Gulf of Mexico flying helicopters. I didn't really get to just write songs for about five years.

I started making music for fun, but I had two parents who were very much in the business. I didn't run around trying to get the spotlight. I was very shy. I never sang in front of people 'til I was about 17 years old.

I got into writing music when I was, like, 14 or 15. It was a very private thing for me because I used it as an outlet and emotional release. I kept it very close to myself and didn't tell too many people about it.