I think an artist's true worth comes through an inter-generational thing - when you go beyond your own time, and start influencing people in a greater way than just what surrounds you.
Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.
I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it's cool.
I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.
I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.
The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.
Nobody really cares about what other people think anymore; they're all about themselves.
I hear a lot of people singing in funny voices and singing like they're stupid. Singing in a deliberately fey and dumb and childish way. And I find it to be a disturbing trend.
I was always an introvert as a kid. Then, when I first kind of came out as a human being, I used to be one of those guys who'd go nuts on the dance floor, and people would gather around.
I'm used to the egos in the 1960s, '70s and '80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.
I knew that I would be making music for my whole life; as far as how many people respond to it, you can't plan for that.
I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.
When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.