“Nothing has happened too fast, nothing has happened too slow. It has been a mellow rise, and I’m thankful for that. I haven’t lost my head, and I haven’t lost my desire to keep growing.”

What I strive to do with songwriting is be really honest, authentic and try to be open and share that with people. I choose that over trying to be clever, poetic, or lyrical.

Follow your heart and you won’t get lost.

I think everybody, no matter what they eat, they should eat at least fifty percent raw food. But I eat some seafood.

I always saw myself as an old man living in the mountains playing a guitar, but I didn’t really turn that into a desire to be a professional musician or a singer or a rock star or anything like that.

I can write songs, but I’m not gonna really feel good about the song unless it feels like me, and I’m not gonna release a song or put it on an album or play it in concert unless it really feels like me.

I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to travel and write songs and be a good songwriter. It came to me slowly after college.

Pain is a part of life. It’s certainly part of my creative process.

I’m a very typical yoga-practicing musician; I do it when I can. I’m not hardcore about it. A lot of my lyrics talk about celebrating life and working through pain. I think that’s what yoga’s about, getting rid of, moving energy and letting it flow through you.

I like to still have thought and be aware of people and whatever that’s happening, but I also like to just focus on the words that I’m saying.

The people at festivals are much more open to dance and just sing along. They come right up to the stage and they’re very thankful.

It’s usually kids that normally don’t have a chance to get to meet each other because they’re separated by millions of different things.

I used to want to be fully observational, but I’m just not that kind of writer. My process always changes depending on how, when, and where inspiration stiles me.

I think most artists would agree, it’s one thing to be playing in front of a crowd that’s loving it, it’s another thing to add cameras, but it’s a really cool trade off to be on television.

When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn’t come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards.

The clock never stops, never stops, never waits. We’re growing old. It’s getting late.

We’re only truly secure when we can look out our kitchen window and see our food growing and our friends working nearby.

Growing up in an old-fashioned Bengali Hindu family and going to a convent school run by stern Irish nuns, I was brought up to revere rules. Without rules, there was only anarchy.

We all get misinformation growing up about people who are different from ourselves.

I think age is terribly overrated. You’re okay as long as you don’t grow up. By all means grow old, but don’t mature. Remain childlike, retain wonder, the ability to be flabbergasted by something.

Our nation’s infrastructure needs are tremendous, and they’re growing.

I was always an Alabama fan growing up, but when the Alabama recruiter told me I would probably not be able to play until the end of my sophomore year, or the beginning of my junior year.