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Golf was big in my family.
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The first year I moved to Nashville, I started playing these songwriter nights with people like Nickel Creek, Duncan Sheik, and even Ryan Adams... That was the first place I really started playing music, and I had to really step up my game. Really quick. Or get kicked off the stage.
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God found me when I was at my lowest point. That was the first time in my life when I really felt like I understood who Jesus was - it was more than just knowing about Him: I felt like He met me in that time and place.
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I was an English major in college, so I really liked spoken word and poetry; it was what I did before I wrote music.
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I enjoy changing; I think it's more fun to try something different than to just do what you did last time. As an artist, you just want to keep creating, keep finding a place that really inspires you that feels fresh and new, and keep it exciting.
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When I barely got into college, the one thing I could do was write, so I became an English major.
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I started as a writer. I didn't play music until late in life.
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There are people I love in Nashville and would not want to go a day without talking to, but I want to see the world.
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When 'Young Love' came out, I was really excited, and it has been really special.
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My first album was hip-hop influenced, and my second was more of a singer-songwriter album.
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I grew up in Oregon, so there was always a lot of that folksy, Bob Marley stuff. There was a mural of Bob Marley on a wall at my high school.
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There's something incredibly vulnerable about middle school for me. We're really impressionable during that period. The cement's still wet, so to speak, and a lot of things later in life are born during that season.
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I didn't start writing music until I was a sophomore in college. I would steal my roommate's guitar and sit on the front porch and kind of blend this weird spoken word and these little melodies over simple chords; that really started my whole journey as a musician.
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I am a micromanager, and I love being involved in every detail of my life, but in the big picture, you realize how little control you have. 'Air I Breathe' is about those moments of surrender where you get to something that is bigger than you, and you don't have answers for it.
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I've had moments in my career when I've made more money and had more success than at other times, but I've realized being happy has very little to do with any of that.
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When I set out to write, I want to write something that will rip your heart out and connect with you. Great songs connect beyond genre and style.
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It's a job, and it's challenging. But I love music and creating. That's why I got into music.
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You write these songs which are really dear to you about your family or friends, loved ones, and then you get this call, and they say, 'It's perfect for two vampires making out in the back of a car.' It's some random TV show, and so I say, 'Oh, yeah, perfect - that's what I meant it for.'
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For my father, he didn't know what 'Grey's Anatomy' was. He didn't know who John Mayer was. But when I showed up on the 'Law & Order' TNT promo spot, he thought, 'Wow, my son has made it.'
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I can't help but do things my own way.
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I think, in a lot of ways, hip-hop is interesting to me because it's like the modern-day folk music.
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Money definitely does not equal success in recording.
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I read about two reviews early on when my first record came out, and it just freaked me out, good and bad, so I've never really kept up with that side of it.
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When I was in college, I wanted to study film. My first passion was to be a cinematographer. So maybe there's something innate in my music where it partners well with images.