My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.
Music can connect people on an intimate level. What Josh and I are trying to do is represent anyone who has some of the questions that we have.
I worked with people I admire; Josh Lucas, who I'd worked with many many years ago on a pilot called The Class of 61 and Kurt Russell, and so there were a variety of different people that I enjoyed working with.
When I do things, like, with Josh Grobin, or he has so many fans, and I get people after my concerts, classical concerts, all the time coming back and saying, 'Never heard of you until I heard the song with Josh Grobin.' Then they're now classical music fans, which is something I think we need to reach a wider audience.
I've found, as I've gotten older, it's really difficult to write on the road. There are so many distractions, so many people in and out of the bus. It's really difficult to do. So I just keep a notebook with me, and I jot down ideas. I schedule appointments to write.
Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
I am not a great believer in the idea that journalistic neutrality means you have to abandon the people you talk to.
Journalists should have been the first to tell people what Obamacare would mean to them. They are now the last to figure all of this out.
I can imagine in years to come that my papers and memorabilia, my journals and letters, will find themselves always in the company of people who care about many of the things I do.
I've never been one for keeping a journal, so my songs were my journals. They allowed me to express my feelings and let people know what was going on with me. I knew that somebody would relate.
My favourite character in fiction was probably either James from 'James and the Giant Peach' or Ender from 'Ender's Game.' They were just ordinary people who were living under various amounts of struggle, and just to follow their journeys and see them break out of that and live extraordinary lives - I think that gave me a lot of hope as a kid.
That's my favourite stuff to write about: my journeys and the people I meet - especially the kids.
I'm surrounded by such beautiful, creative people, and I just love sort of sharing their stories and their journeys.
If it wasn't for John Peel, there would be no Joy Division and no New Order. He was one of the few people to give bands that played alternative music a chance to get heard, and he continued to be a champion of cutting-edge music throughout his life.
I don't pretend to be Joy Division or New Order. What I do is very straight forward: it's an interpretation and a celebration of the music, with different people. Everyone looks at it and knows exactly what I'm doing.
I read one too many books about Joy Division by people who weren't there, and they always seem to dwell on the dark, the intense, the miserable image of Joy Division.
Most people have just heard Joy Division on record. And Joy Division on record was completely different than it was live.
At my ashram, people work long hours joyfully because they are inspired. When people are involved and joyfully doing something, they usually turn out ten times more and do more than what they would normally do as a duty.
The fact is, everything we want or yearn for is won through other people. No man on an island is happy; he is merely existing. The joyous life is the one filled with rich relationships.
People only talk about what a joyous experience it is, but there is terror: Your life, as you know it, is over. It's over the day that child is born. It's over, and something completely new starts.
