Pop is like a puzzle: to write a perfect pop song, you never know, and there's so much that can happen in a second with a song.
That's really what was wonderful for me growing up, since I got to know so many of the songwriters who liked me and thought I had talent. They would then tell me how to read a lyric and sing a song, and challenge me to try and find a different end to a song.
You have to learn how to act a pop song. You have to find the balance of the pop from the pop song and the lyrical significance of the scene you are in.
I started training wrestling in the pre-social media era and I was very cautious - I thought, 'I can't have people know my real last name.' So I changed my last name to End because I always called myself 'The End.' I thought that was cool. I thought I'd take my real first name and my 'fake' last name, and that's how I came up with Tommy End.
I need to figure men out. I've been seeing men that either remind me of my mother or remind me of my father. I either end up caretaking or being abandoned so I've had enough of my romantic instincts. I need to date away from type.
Cowriting is very personal. A great song is an honest song, so you have to be able to open up to the person in the room. It's like a blind date. I know in the first five minutes if it's gonna be weird.
There are times pop music is the end result when I'm in the studio, but I don't really go in and say, 'Today I am going to make a pop song,' but it can happen.
I realized probably when I was, like, 20 years old that the hardest thing to do is to write a pop song - not, like, a candy-pop, throwaway pop song.
Valentines Day is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think its more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date.
I think pop music was going through a phase where it was like pop but dance-hall or pop but R&B. But, no, I just want a pop song.
Let me give you a lesson about school. All the kids who were popular end up on the dole with babies. All the nerds end up as pop stars
When we try to write a pop song, we go for standard pop arrangements, even to the point where we will go to the key change at the end, which is really cheesy.
I remember coming in to the studio and meeting Barry Manilow . I was kind of star-struck. He said, "I want to play you this song." We get to the end of the song and I hear him actually sing my name as part of the lyric. I had to pick my jaw up from the floor!
The easiest way I can describe what makes a pop song a pop song is that it's a song you want to hear over and over.
I love pop music. It's not easy to write a good pop song. It may be easier to put out a fake jazz album, as Sting does from time to time.
I'm not the best at choosing what's good and what's bad. I wouldn't even know what's a good pop song and what's a bad one. With that said, I wanted to say what's true to me. Some people might say that the Skrillex record was pop, but that was just about the chemistry between me and my boy.