I really wanted to focus on my songwriting, or songwriting with other people. I wanted to go learn from other people who were really good at the classic, more traditional idea of songwriting.
There's something really precious in that - if you try to tame something that's meant to be wild you wind up jeopardizing the nature of why it exists.
Smile, the worst is yet to come.
I think, being a male singer, I always hate another great male singer's voice before I can love it, unless it's just really far from what I do.
I enjoy writing in a lot of different styles, so I pushed to find that vicious place, or that vulnerable place, and let it exist as intensely as I could.
When I started that's how I wrote because I didn't know any better. I was just like "I want to make music." Then there were all these things that I learned to get myself over certain humps, but I think it just comes down to: do I have something to say or not? If I'm feeling something I should try to get that out, and maybe it's not words, but trying to turn it into something.
You need a sanctuary. Somewhere where it doesn't feel like it's being tainted by everybody's opinions and other people's money. I think I'm kind of homesick right now.
Everybody's able to pour into each other creatively, and pop into the studio and pop out. It feels like a community. As an artistic community I think it's really cool.
The first time I was in Stockholm, everybody was real cordial, but I started having these nightmares that I was being watched by aliens, basically all the time. My theory on it was that it was really, really unnerving to be in a place where English isn't the first language.
