My wife grew up loving country music, so I always run songs by her whether I wrote it or if somebody pitched it to me.
Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.
If my musical tastes are continuing to grow up, and I am not really too interested in the music that my kids listen to, then I assume that the audience is doing the same.
I've always liked pop music. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with the avant-garde rock scene, because I think I was sort of swimming the wrong way, really.
One of the things that I think is such a constant in country music is that the song is so much a story. I believe it is supposed to be based around a story.
I have yet to have a successful outcome of sitting in a room with someone and trying to write a song. The way that I generally co-write is that someone else writes the music or part of the music.
Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.
Hip-hop is a beautiful thing. I think that the music genre itself has created more millionaires than any other music genre before it, especially in our community.
And music has always been incredibly cathartic for me, whether it's writing my own stuff or singing other people's music; it's very freeing.
That internal ache is the starting point of country music. If it's a happy song and I can still feel sad in it? That's my favorite.
I believe that music is a spiritual language. My everyday self is pretty mundane and boring, but when I'm making music it allows for me to communicate a kind of transcendence that I can't communicate otherwise.
I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.
I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.
I want to make the music that people remember, and it doesn't need a trend; it doesn't need to be constantly hyped. There's no time period for it. That's the type of music I want to make.
Pop music can get inside us and enter our memory bubbles. It provides those true Proustian moments, unlocking sensations, unlocking our imaginations. Music inspired me as a filmmaker.
I have come to terms with the fact that it's called pop music - that's what I play, and that is what I write. I think it is a pretty broad category.
It's hard for me to say that what I'm doing isn't even really music, because deep inside of me, what I want to do is much greater than music.
What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.
I can make any type of music, so I wouldn't want to describe myself as having one type of sound. I think music is about keeping it diverse.
When we started there was this element of these experiments we were doing where we weren't really sure how the music would play out because the music was all on different players.
I can only think of music as something inherent in every human being - a birthright. Music coordinates mind, body and spirit.
