There never seems to be enough hours in the day. At the moment I have no time to make new music because I've been doing so much promotion for this new single.
I meet people every single day who have heard the music and incorporated it into their lives. I feel like I have a tribe all around the world.
Joaquin Sabina is one of my favorites. He's like a legend. He's like our Bob Dylan, or our Bruce Springsteen. He's one of the most talented writers of our Latin music.
I don't listen to music. I very rarely listen to music. I only listen for information. I listen when a friend sends me a song or a new record.
Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.
I know too many musicians that have to tour on the same 10 songs, and they burn out. They get back to their house, and they have no reason to write new music. They are music'd out.
I think all groups who don't fit in clearly with Western music have to think, 'How can I expand my market? Where else can I perform?'
Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics.
I have to play as much of the game as I allow myself to get the music heard. But it's not unlike the rest of the world, so I'm not as up in arms about it as I could be.
When I perform Strauss, it is as if the music fits me like a glove. My voice seems to lie in a happy area in this music, which is lyrical and passionate at the same time.
I'm treating country music like it's a sport. I'm looking at where my competition is and realized I needed to work on my songwriting.
I'm depressed when I don't get to do music. Having to go back to doing something I don't like and am not passionate about would be a tough thing.
All I can do is focus on staying true to the style of music I write and sing because that is the only way it's going to come off as honest.
One of the problems that we face through the media attention that these artists receive is that there has been an awful lot of talk about opera and classical music being elite and being for an elitist group.
I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I never took music lessons. I was just playing around in front of the mirror and being silly, then suddenly I started making songs.
I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.
Coming from New Zealand, all the music I listen to is not made by New Zealanders. People never come to New Zealand to play a show because it's in the middle of nowhere.
And to me, I had come out of Texas, and during that time was when I realized that a lot of people in Nashville, their idea of what country music was was not the same as mine.
I thinks it really interesting how they throw the world music samples in there. I often wonder what it would be like to do something like that, but use my lyrics and my kind of style.
I'm a pretty easygoing person, and it bleeds into the music. Even if I'm writing the most personal song, it's not going to come out totally serious; there's always a little tongue in the cheek.
Gary Numan had a huge influence on both my music and my style. He had his own unique fashion sense - that futuristic space style. It was out there.
