I dont really take anything from home except some U.S. magazines and books and definitely some U.S. music. There are just certain songs that remind me of home.
Heartbreak can definitely give you a deeper sensibility for writing songs. I drew on a lot of heartbreak when I was writing my first album, I didn't mean to but I just did.
It's easy to say that reducing a song to 90 seconds on "American Idol" strips off so many things, and how it's the 21st century and music doesn't mean the same things to people and that it's so disposable.
I can understand why rock stars are rock stars and why they play in front of people because the buzz that you get is insane. It's probably the same as when you do something on stage and you work off the audience. The buzz you get when you're playing a song and everyone is screaming and dancing and what have you and singing along is incredible.
Everything I do is about setting up for the next. I think that my confidence and belief in myself as well as the music and trusting my judgment of my songs really grew the most.
I have a notebook that I take with me everywhere. I free-write in it when there are situations that I know I can write a song about. I will just start writing everything that I can think of while trying to write some things that are kind of poetic or sound like they could be in a song. Then, after the music is written, I go back and look at my subjects to see which one I think woud go with what music. Then, I formulate it into a melody and get the song.
If you and I shall, like the believing shepherds, watch and long for His appearing, one day we, too, shall hear a music grander and sweeter even than the song of angels, when the great Composer shall transpose all the strains of earth from the minor into the major, when the wail of nature shall give way to the glad harmony of the everlasting jubilee.
That's where the songs come from: that's what I'd most want people to understand. What sounds good or looks good, that's nothing. The only worthwhile thing in art is seeing someone else's heart.