Musician

I work off of my early demos. I'll keep adding on top of that, but I usually gravitate towards whatever that original idea was.

There's a lot of older musicians who say your whole life making music, you're really trying to get back to that first couple of things you liked when you were a kid. And as much as you might like to think you're not, you really are.

I try to take whatever I can from the songs I grew up listening to, these vibed-out pop numbers, and make them my own in some weird way.

I love playing guitar every night, and to be at this point where it's like, the songs are done and I'm happy with the way they are on record, and I get to hear them be reinterpreted by the live band? That's kind of the icing on the cake. It's the best.

I'd think the house was the source of great sadness or pressure. I knew it wasn't. I knew it was just where I lived. But I'd walk up the stairs and the second floor was just desolate. My old bedroom: empty. My old rehearsal room: empty. First floor studio: messy and empty. Middle room: broken gear everywhere.

Somewhere between this kind of cruising freedom, and this understated moment where all these little things intertwine to create a bigger sound. You don't want one thing to be bright, or too prevalent.

I just want to make that my life: recording music and trying to write a good song every day.

I love Tom Petty the way a lot of people love him. He's got so many amazing songs, and you know them by heart. They're classics.

When I was a kid, the Patriots were my team, but I didn't really care, you know what I mean? I got taken to a game once by a friend and it was the coldest I've ever been in my life. It was torture.

I'm still undisciplined in the fact that I'm not writing anything down. I just get these lines and start piecing it together and then going back.

All those crazy Impressionist painters in France were friends but they would write about how jealous and competitive they were. That's what makes good art.

With 'Under the Pressure,' I just found two chords I liked, and built it up, did like a ten-minute drum pattern.

I learned Neil Young songs, Bob Dylan songs and older songs. It wasn't until I moved to Philly that I had aspirations to maybe forming a band.

My siblings weren't playing music; I was the only one who wanted to buy a guitar and was listening on headphones the whole time.

There are so many great records that when you grow older, you're like, 'Oh man, this is the best record ever made.' And you're like, 'Oh it didn't get nominated or win a Grammy.' It's countless, how many amazing, classic American records haven't been knighted or whatever.

When you're in the moment and not over thinking the song is when things tend to really work. You're not so focused on the minutiae. You're focused on the overall feel, and that's the stuff that I get from the demos.

No I don't play bluegrass harmonica or anything like that. I don't listen to country or bluegrass records.

I like that kind of classic-type sound. A lot of my favorite albums were tracked live, with a four-piece band. I love the way those albums sound, but I want to make records that sound like that in the way I like to make stuff.

Every show with my Jazzmaster is like a new show.

You can't really take it for granted that people listen to your music. I want to write songs that are on par, at least in my mind, with the ones I've loved for my whole life and that will be around forever.