I love writing songs with people, which is about really taking risks, throwing yourself over the falls and really seeing what you're made of and seeing how it sticks. Seeing how others react to it, and seeing also how it can become a melody and how it can really take off from your experience. It's a way of seeing life unfold on the page before me.
A picture can say 1000 words but it can also inspire you to write 1000 more.
I write a lot of material you've never heard that live inside my sadness. You'll hear a song that lasts six to seven minutes of just beautiful sadness. But I can't just go out on the stage to ask five thousand people to be sad with me for seven straight minutes.
I write my miserable songs. I write songs about disgust and self-pity. We’re all going to have bummer moments. That’s not the stuff I choose to share.
I would love to blog daily but I have not been making time for it because my internet is very slow. Everyone should make time for writing.
By the end of the writing process, which is about 80 songs per album, I look at the material and think, what's going to make a difference in someone's life.
I basically had the idea when I was 18 that I wanted to write my own songs. I knew it was going to be a long, tough road, and I was like, if I just begin now, by the time I'm 40, I'll be good at it.
When I sit down to write a song, I really want the message of healing to thrive and transcend all ages.
Writing songs is no different than explaining to somebody what you dreamed last night: No one ever gives you crap for what you dreamed last night. "I was laying in my bed, and all of a sudden a stallion jumped on my bed and the next thing I know I was in Mars but it looked like my kitchen"... That's kind of what I do with my songs, write them in a dream-like manner. It's up to people to swallow it however they want.
The easiest songs to write are pure fiction. There is no limit to how you can tell the story. I find it difficult when I'm replaying an event through a song.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon would often write a song a day, so I have the same workmanlike philosophy.
I could experience vulnerability if I just constantly gave myself away without ever taking time out once a day or a couple times a day or whatever it is I need to restore, whether it's more sleep, or whether it's going to see a movie or writing something new.
I'm a self-taught musician so how I read music is kind of very weak and I kind of read my own version of tablature, I write my own crappy reminders on what I'm playing.
I try not to write songs. I would rather emote them, and I found myself going back to my room every night while on my trip, just pouring out new songs and new stories about what I was seeing, what I was feeling.
Sometimes touring can warp reality because you're never in one place long enough to get a feel for it. You don't interact with people long enough to know what real life is. That's why a lot of artists write songs about longing and missing people when they're on the road. I do my best to keep my mind open and I read a lot when I'm on tour, so I hope I have good things to write about. I'm constantly in the songwriting process.
My touring isn't about collecting souvenirs and always being on the go. My souvenirs are writing in my journal and creating new music, because that fits easily into my backpack when I'm travelling around the world. It's something that I can share later with fans or with future family members.
To create an album of 12 songs, I've got to write about 80 songs. Half of those are totally weird and rubbish.
When you're writing a song and there are five people invested in it, it's easy for one person to say, 'Oh, this song is about this and that', and everyone has to hear the idea and see if they can do better.
I aim to write songs in a way that you don't have to have gone to Ghana to relate to it, you really just have to have a heart.
I feel like I write the same album every time but each time I try to convey the message more simply.
