I love getting to bounce around and explore so much. I love Scandinavia. I love Spain. It's so mystical and romantic, yet it's gritty.
I recently read that it's the left brain that does all that calculating, and the right brain that does the poetry. Somehow I've veered way towards the left. I've been doing it for years. Maybe I do art to balance it out.
I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.
Growing up as a singer, and a cast member, and now as an adult, a songwriter, I get the luxury of choosing the kinds of songs that I want to sing, because I'll write, you know, hundreds of songs. Even though only 12 appear on the album. That's 12 that I've chosen to sing of my catalog.
I think our storytellers - our songwriters should be great storytellers, and they should be mountain climbers and explorers, because music is something that can cross all different borders.
If you're a new artist, practice your art and share it. Set up shop somewhere, whether it's a street corner or a coffee shop. I got my start in a coffee shop that didn't even have live music. I wanted to play in coffee shops that did have live music, but I didn't have an audience.
When I finished performing 'I Won't Give Up' for the first time, I opened my eyes, and I think there was maybe six people in there when I started, and when I finished there was about 30 people, all standing around with their jaws dropped in complete silence. I said, 'Okay, I think this song has some power to it.' So coffee shops work for me.
I get my most creative sort of energy after a show. So I love to go back to the hotel and compose new material. Generally in a rush, exactly. I have to get it out somehow, otherwise I can't sleep, you know.
Thanks to 'I'm Yours,' I'm probably set for a really long time. The pressure I put on myself, or what I hope my 'I Won't Give Up' does, is to make a difference in people's lives... With 'I'm Yours,' I got to go out and set my feet on different continents, and expose myself to different cultures and causes.
I have an amazing social-media wing man who manages my Facebook fan site. All my blogs get copied there.
I have an amazing social-media wing man who manages my Facebook fan site. All my blogs get copied there. My e-mail in-box exploded, and I don't have that kind of time. My mom and sister have their whole life on Facebook, and I'm not there.
You can't live the rest of your life carrying a pain because your parents couldn't get along. I choose to spend my life crafting a joy.
When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.
I've been making demos at home for many albums now. So over those years, I've learned how to record music, and I love being at home. I excel when I can make things at home.
I have a very awesome seat in the house every time I play. When the lights come up, and the sound turns on, I'm playing for a roomful of human beings. And geographical and political borders just all dissolve. And we unite through rhythm inhalation. I mean, I'm so grateful that, you know, audiences around the world connect to English music.
My parents dreaded the fact that I was changing my life to do this, but I just kept doing it.
I try to acknowledge both the sacred and the silly in my work. That goes for the live show as well. If I find myself in my head or dwelling in seriousness, I think of my friends back home and how they'd be laughing at me.
'I'm Yours' was written effortlessly in about 20 minutes' time, and I honestly thought it was more of like a kids' song, and I didn't do anything with it for years.
It's easier to write from my own life, and it's also more fun. I always write about relationships, for instance, whether they're romantic relationships, friendships, encounters... there's always a lesson to be learned from them.
I don't follow any of what the pop world is doing. Sometimes I feel like that's a weakness, actually, that I'm too in my own bubble. But I'm really just interested in the inner journey. And pop is all about the exterior world, the material.
