“When Marvin Gaye made his music, he evoked this feeling that would reach everybody.”

I was raised in a Catholic school, and I would always go to church on Sunday, and I would hear the same music over and over and over and over again, same gospels, hymns, everything.

I didn’t start singing until I was 16. I was afraid to sing in front of people.

When my dad played me ‘Walking Man,’ I heard those chord changes and that melody, it completely blew me away. Maybe you wouldn’t really hear the James Taylor influences in my music, but they’re definitely buried in there.

My first date ever, I was kind of nervous, so I was like, ‘I’m going to bring Brady to this walk on the beach with this girl,’ and she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have a King Charles Cavalier, too.’ I’m like, ‘Money, perfect, amazing.’

A lot of people don’t know, but New Jersey has, like, 700,000 acres of farmland.

I actually get a lot of messages with people saying, ‘What’s a Marvin Gaye?’ and, I mean… Oh, wow. I must be getting old, because someone who was born in 2004 just asked me what a Marvin Gaye was.

I was carrying my friend in his casket to put him in the hearse, and I was thinking, ‘I need to write a song for this guy, because he always told me I would have a No. 1 song.’

I don’t love the whole Hollywood mentality, but I do love the weather and how motivated everyone is around here. It motivates me to make fun music. I’m an East Coaster – I’m from New Jersey, so I’ll probably feel like that forever.

I listened to a lot of Marvin Gaye and Motown records.

When I get high anxiety, I vomit. My mom was so stressed out. Then I found out I was staying in John Mayer’s old dorm room, and I had a nice roommate. That completely brought me down. I was completely comfortable at Berklee.

One of my goals is to find an unsigned YouTube artist and feature them on my album. That’s what I wished someone would’ve done for me.

I started making remixes for every specific girl I wanted to date. That’s how I learned how to use Pro Tools, and then I started making my own music.

I’ve always made weird sounds with my mouth. I’ve always been fascinated by the sound design, what you can do with your mouth. I was the kid dancing around in third grade on the basketball court. While everyone would be playing sports, I would be jumping around.

It’s crazy because I have a scar on my right eyebrow, but people who don’t know me very well think that I just intentionally shave that part of it.

I started piano when I was four. My mom taught me. And then I went to Manhattan School of Music during high school, like every Saturday. And then I went to Berklee for college, in Boston.

I’ve always weaseled my way into Grammy parties to network and everything, but now I have a legitimate reason to be there – it’s so cool.

Mercy,’ I love conceptually because I feel like you can either think about it as if it were a girl – which it sounds like it could be about a girl – but I like to picture it as ‘pleading for mercy for my career’ type of thing.

You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better when it closes up again.

I write to feel closer to you.

The loss of life is only truly felt by the living.

Photograph not only what you see but also what you feel.

If I could trade places with any of my sisters for a day, it would be Kim. I want to see what it’s like…The only time she sleeps is on the airplane. It’s just crazy. I feel bad for her, but I still want to know what it’s like.

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.

What causes us to think of prayer as the last option rather than the first? I can think of two reasons: feelings of independence and feelings of insignificance.