You need to get outside of your comfort zone to write songs that are interesting, songs that are compelling, songs that are different from what other people are writing.
To me, it's all about the song. Songs are what make me excited. You hear a great song and you want to record it or get a great idea and you want to write it.
Lyrically and thematically, the title 'Doctor Faith', that song is about therapy, psychotherapy, and that song is about emotions and personal insight. I think all the songs on the record sort of go along with that.
Every song you're trying to find something that going to connect in different ways but for me the songs that I'm really drawn to are inspirational, songs that lift you and that everybody can relate to no matter where you're from.
I like my name. My mom named me after a song by the 1970s group Bread. So, it's meaningful, and I like the song. It's a love song - kind of - but it's kind of depressing and dark.
I love Neil Young. His songs were the first songs I learned to play, and I recommend anyone who is starting guitar to learn Neil Young songs first.
A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.
A song must move the story ahead. A song must take the place of dialogue. If a song halts the show, pushes it back, stalls it, the audience won't buy it; they'll be unhappy.
When you're like, 'Yo, we gotta write a hit song, we need a hit song right now,' that never works. Every time that happens, I never write a hit song.
For music, unlike a $500 software program, people are paying a buck or two a song, and it's those dollars and pennies that have to add up to pay for not just the cost of that song, but the investment in the next song.
I learn stuff from making music every time I go in the studio. I'm continuing to try to find new ways to play in a song or be in a song and have a positive impact on a song.
I like songs that sound like classics. There are songs that might be cooler or have better production, but I like songs that sound like they're timeless.
My songs aren't bubble gum pop dance songs and I don't have background dancers on every single song.
I try to write down every song that comes to me, even though I know that every song that comes to me isn't a song that I need to sing.
A broken heart, too much cold beer, ocean waves and a willing man were never a good combination, no matter what the country songs said.
Well, memory can play tricks. Most people, I think, tend to remember the good rather than the bad when someone close to them dies.
Dickens must have first heard his famous The law is an ass quote from a woman. And she was damned right, for all the good it did her.
I do think sometimes there's danger in guest appearance mania. I've seen too many examples that sound cool on paper, like 'Oh, get that guy to sing the hook on that guy's song,' and then that's all it is. It's a cool idea that sounds good on paper.
I'm usually really drawn to a song, and I know it would be good to cover if it sounds like something that I could write, or I wished I could write. Sometimes a writer just sounds like they're in your head, and that is really cool for me.
I think it's kind of difficult to write a good Christmas song because you have a narrow framework of references that you have to work within, and at the same time you want to do something that's personally original and hopefully somewhat unique.
There's a lot of people out there who have seen us once somewhere in a pub or heard our songs late night on radio. We'd done four years of it before we'd even released a single. It's put us in good stead.
