I understand that, but this disc shows the type of music that I've always liked and wanted to make.

I didn't want my last chapter to be the guy who sits at the piano and sings love songs.

The only thing that's a little tricky about it is sometimes people assume that if it's a new song, it's a reflection of what you're feeling or going through now.

I really didn't have any plans to record prior to doing My Own Best Enemy.

My joke, which isn't really a joke, is that there will be one of two tours: the tour for the album that does well, or the tour for the album that stiffs.

I think I do better when things are a little tougher.

I've never, ever in my life enjoyed playing live the way I am now.

I love when people get songs wrong. I love when people take something from a song that's totally not what I intended!

I understand that, but this disc shows the type of music that I've always liked and wanted to make.

In the past, there has always been so much pressure about carrying a show and promoting a record.

So it was just a case of getting a bunch of songs that I had been writing for years but hadn't recorded together, and the result was My Own Best Enemy.

And to any new fans we made along the way, I say... welcome to our party. It's just starting to get going.

I've never written a song that I thought was a hit.

It never ceases to amaze me that I get to do this for a living.

When things are too easy I lose interest in them so I find ways to complicate them to get myself interested.

One time Robert Plant was set to check into the same room after I checked out, so I removed every light bulb and ordered up a bunch of stinky cheese and put it under the mattress.

I fell off stage and bruised some ribs. The worst part was that the audience didn't realize I was gone.

People take songs so literally.

I'm happy, I would say that I'm one of the happiest people I know but I've certainly had periods of profound sadness, depression and heartache and those are the kind of things that are interesting to me to write about.

I think really what I'm saying is that I thrive on adversity.

But I'm just having fun playing and giving Botox injections to the older songs.

But once you have some success in one style, the business wants to lock you in that vein forever.

I've always loved groups like U2 and Coldplay.

I can't wait to front my band with these new songs and play for fans, but I've decided to keep my day job too.

As a songwriter, there's nothing better than winning Song Of The Year. But I couldn't really celebrate, because it wasn't right. Luther wasn't standing next to me, to receive the award.

I have complete freedom, and there's no way to get pigeonholed or bored. What could be better than that?

I'm now so keenly aware that I have everything to prove and nothing to lose.

I don't think I've ever laid out a batch of songs that pick myself apart the way that these do.

It's funny; Luther and I have written many songs together, but we've never written songs in the same room.

Doing my own album provided me the opportunity to say whatever I wanted.

But more importantly, I think he remembered how very close I was with my own dad, who had died in 1997.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.