When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.
I wanted to escape so badly. But of course I knew I couldn't just give up and leave school. It was only when I heard my mom's voice that I came out of my hiding place.
But the reality is when you write a song, you should be able to strip away all the instruments and just have a song right there with an acoustic guitar and a voice, and the song should be good.
I think most people don't like others who, without a voice of their own, emulate the other. I certainly don't want anybody just to pick up my thoughts and hand them back to me.
A lot of people recognize me or feel that they know me. A lot of times when I speak, they recognize my voice. It's fun, it's exciting. It's always good feedback.
A voice expressing emotion in a musical way moves on. It's like the finale of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - the world turns in on itself, as a universe unto itself, in the shape of one human being.
When there is a voice in a piece of music, we tend to focus on the voice. That is probably something from when we were babies and we depended on hearing our mother's voice.
As I've gone along, I felt like I was discovering an aspect of my voice that I didn't know was there: an ability to interpret a song in a way that makes it more accessible.
