Music for me is an emotional thing and it really does make me happy. It's not a tool for me to get fame or see my face in the papers or anything like that. It's about the fact that I really do enjoy it.
So in that way, fame has become a weirder thing to go after, but the thing about me is I've never been after fame. That sounds cliché, but it's true. I think fame sounds uncomfortable to me, but being able to like write this book and make my living doing very exciting, creative stuff sounds really amazing. It has been really amazing.
Marriage is a really scary thing. I'm excited about it. I know it's not a mistake, it's the absolute right thing to do. I'm really happy about it. I really, really love my fiancee. We're good friends and I think it's going to work. But that's just the point - it's going to take work. It does make me feel vulnerable to be like, wow, I'm committed to this person for the rest of my life.
I get satisfaction out of making a meal for people that I love and having them enjoy it. But there's not really anything in my life that I do that's just for me that feeds my soul like music does.
There's a part of me that is really, really happy with all of my success lately because of what it can get me and what it can buy me in the fact that my music will hopefully reach more people. But it also makes me a little bit miserable because the minute the spotlight is on you, people start flinging sh*t at you for whatever reason.
I've been on shows that are very comedic and happy, and you really only get to see one side of my personality. They're not shows about my life or my music, or my struggle or anything like that. They're shows where you pretty much see me laughing and smiling all the time.
If you listen to soul music, or R&B music, or Blues music, a lot of that came from church music and spiritual music, and music has always been a really really powerful tool that people have used to get them closer to God - whatever they define God as. And for me that's always been part of what drew me to it and keeps me coming back for more.
I make big shots everywhere. I get accustomed to it. I'm not afraid to be the goat. I don't worry about what you (reporters) say about me in the papers. In fact, I like it. It tickles me.
I'm not very good at sounding like other people. When you're going through your 20's and trying to get a break and that kind of thing, and you're trying to do something that sounds like film music, your idea of what it would be, it never really worked out for me and it's only really when I learned to trust the fact that I could only really sound like me.
I like it when girls are screaming for me. It makes me feel really player-like. I enjoy being out there, delivering my songs, and putting a face to the music.
In the course of my life, I've made some happy songs but it's the more sort of like pathos-laden, emotional, melancholic music that either I make or that other people make that really resonates with me.
My cat does this thing where he's so happy to see me that he repeatedly smashes his face into my face and purrs like a literal pig.
With me, what you see is what you get. Yes, call me naive, but I love life. I am happy, and for that, I make no apologies. I do like to see the best in people, and when someone is nice to my face, I tend to believe them.
Music has the power to make me feel good like nothing else does. It gives me some peace for a while. Takes me back to who I really am.
I wasn't really happy in school and didn't really have anything else going for me; I wasn't really good at anything. Drama was at least something I loved and was really passionate about.
If I ever really felt depressed, I would just start putting on all my old records that I played as a kid, because the whole thing that really lifted me then still lifted me during those other times. It was good medicine for me, and it still does that for me when I put something on. Isn't it wonderful that we've got all that good medicine? I think it's got to be all part of our DNA, this mass communication through music. That's what it is. It's got to be, hasn't it? Music is the one thing that has been consistently there for me. It hasn't let me down.
I spend a lot of time saying to myself, "Well, is that really what I like to do? Is that really something that makes me happy?" and letting go of the things that don't make me happy.