Hip-hop educated me about other forms of music, because it sampled from all different styles.
I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.
I feel like my kind of music is a big pot of different spices. It's a soup with all kinds of ingredients in it.
Games have has as much an impact on Hollywood filmmaking as MTV music videos did.
I'm all about telling stories. I like people to picture the music video in their head when they're just listening to the song.
It's like my parents' musical tastes are the mother and father of my music. It's their fault for making me so emotional and in tune with my emotions!
I studied audio engineering at university. The background I am from, music was never seen as a viable career; it was always a hobby.
I used to be fast and loose with the term 'country' because I didn't know what else to call my music. I still don't.
I used to like the Jonas Brothers, but only because I thought that they were good-looking, not because I actually liked their music.
I make my guitar scream with pain or pleasure or sensuality. It makes people move their feet and shake their bodies. That's what music does.
I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.
In the music world, concerts unfold strictly according to plan. But, as I'd been finding out, in the book world, things keep changing by the second.
Sometimes you get so jaded, you don't have those initial connections and emotions with music, because you are promoting your own.
New York feels like the whole city is into dance music. That's not how it felt when I was younger. There was more of a hipster scene.
That's what I care about is the people I work with and representing them and helping to make their music apparent for the rest of the world.
Any club is important. All Latin music movements are born in clubs. There is no better research than going to a club. If your music works, it will bounce up.
The iPod made music mobile, but today, how many devices do you need to walk around with? You want it on just one. And inevitably that's going to be the phone.
Well, I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.
The Internet is overrated. It's much smaller an innovation than people think it is. I don't think it's changed the way anybody makes music.
I'd call what I do pop music, but it's folky and electronic and it doesn't really sound like much else.
Music is a powerful tool in galvanizing people around an issue. There's no better way to get your point across than to put it in a beautiful song.
