The older I get, the more I realize that you don’t have to be around people you don’t want to be around, and you don’t have to be in a situation you don’t want to be in. You have the power to rise up and leave.
Coming from heavy music too, it’s really hard to have heavy music not sound too butthead-ish or jock-ish, and there’s a fine line between Limp Bizkit and Nirvana – there’s a fine line there, and it’s terrifying.
My point is I’m kind of an outlier. For whatever reason, the success still blows my mind – that I’m able to talk to people about the music I’ve written.
I like to write pop songs and the stuff I write is fairly poppy, so I thought maybe my lot in life was to write pop songs for people. It never felt right writing songs for other people to sing, though.
There’s a bunch of songs that I call B-sides on the record that you could argue could maybe have some potential commercial success with another artist, but for me, they just felt really whack.
My first attempt at real music was when I was 13. My first signed band was when I was 21; that failed. I got another deal at 26; that failed, and then I was broke.
I find that a lot of times when family members get bronchitis or the flu or something like that, I’ll kind of skate through and be really lucky and not get that sick.
I want to surround myself with the people I care about and that has a lot to do with what love is. It’s surrounding yourself with the people you do love and trust, and that kind of thing.
If you’re waiting around for something to be handed to you or win the lottery, chances are nothing is ever going to go down, you know, so you got to make it happen on your own.
Some people are more affected by, I hate to use the word “success,” but I don’t know what else to say, but some people are more affected by that than others.
I’ve always found it pretty difficult to write a happy song. Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it’s been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It’s not really ever been my route.
