Songs always get better after you start playing them live.

We want people to see us live before we continue on and call ourselves recording artists.

When I sit down to write a song, I really want the message of healing to thrive and transcend all ages.

A rescue mission doesn't involve going in and just taking a child and leaving. You can't just choose any child at random. Every kid has a case that is based on that child's original family. So, we made it over to a village, found the child; we were interacting with the child.

I'm not a virtuoso on an instrument. You know, I'm not always singing in pitch. I laugh sometimes my way through the shows, but I'm an honest songwriter who's always tried to bring the audience with me on my journey in hopes that they see their own lives reflected in the work.

There's a certain feeling of giving, a certain feeling of generosity in love songs. When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe.

Well, for me, what I've learned at the very end of this, love is sharing, and I think that really is, for me, the best place to go to experience love, is sharing.

A lot of those ideal towns are all starting to look the same, the specifics are starting to disappear. So we need to retain a love for life, a love for one's family, a love for where one's really from.

And if you're singing to someone, or if they're singing along, and suddenly you're in harmony, then it's actually making a huge difference on a subatomic level that is actually transforming the world.

But my strength was in singing and songwriting, which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided if I pursued songwriting, which is what was closest to my heart, then there would be no competition. I would just live my life being myself and living my dream.

But that guitar is the perfect companion to the human voice. You rest it against your gut, against your heart, and when you strum it the vibrations go outwards for all to hear, but the vibration also hits you on your body.

I always think of the live show first, where the song is gonna go in the show. That's why they aren't sad songs. When I play, I want to make people happy, not sad. It's such a pleasure for me to do what I do, and I want other people to feel some form of that pleasure, too.

I basically had the idea when I was 18 that I wanted to write my own songs. I knew it was going to be a long, tough road, and I was like, if I just begin now, by the time I'm 40, I'll be good at it.

I call it sacred geometry. When everything's just right and it feels really balanced, so that when it unfolds to the next part, you feel totally familiar and at ease within the song.

I didn't know if I had the music for it or if I could pull off the larger concert experience. Then I realized if I can just continue to be myself, I'll be all right.

I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.

I think especially with the Internet and the amount of reality shows that are going on, there's no way to keep a secret anymore, so I try to let my project be as much as reality show as I can allow it to be.

I'm actually no longer a strict vegan. I don't hang out in the cheese section - I don't even eat cheese. I don't drink milk. But every once in a while I'll have an egg. I'm going to eat eggs that come out of my next-door neighbor's farm, that's just the way it is.

In my relationship, I was giving myself away to make the relationship better, but in actuality, wasn't doing better by doing that. I became less of a man.

It was a very bizarre experience for me, to get the songs together, go in there, and try to deliver them as I would perhaps in a live setting. But I realized that I couldn't take on that coffeehouse style that I came from and go in there and burn it up.