I write to get to the bottom of whatever I’m feeling. And I hope that my music will comfort the people who hear it, and maybe help them process whatever they need to.

Being that vulnerable is so necessary; putting words to those feelings is difficult, and it take a while to write the songs because I want to get them right. It can be excruciating, but it’s worth it, it feels like you actually got to the bottom of something, and the hope is that people can easily relate to it.

Throughout all of the changes that have happened in my life, one of the priorities I've had is to never change the way I write songs and the reasons I write songs. I write songs to help me understand life a little more. I write songs to get past things that cause me pain. And I write songs because sometimes life makes more sense to me when it's being sung in a chorus, and when I can write it in a verse.

Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite, it is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, one’s perilousness, one’s smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering.

Yes. I battle with that all the time. "Let Me Drown" is probably one of the most disturbing songs I've ever written. Usually, if I write lyrics that are bleak or dark, it usually makes me feel better. That one didn't. It made me question whether it was a song that was all right to play. Should we even do this? It was so negative. But that's the only one I can think of that's like that. Otherwise, it's like watching a horror movie: It makes you feel better after feeling worse.

I think a lot of what motivates me songwriting-wise is — this might sound silly — but, when I listen to a song that I love, it kind of makes me feel better. I think that’s the impetus behind everything I write; I want to make people feel better, whether it’s myself, or a friend, or whoever. I don’t know how to say this without sounding corny or banal, but I know a lot of people who are very hard on themselves. So this is sort of a cheerleading lullaby.

It's very personal… and I think people relate to how deep the lyrics are

To me, song writing is so therapeutic, it's just part of my life and I can't go through the day without having some kind of song idea pop into my head where I have to write Sharpie all over my arm trying to remember the song idea."

It’s that weird magic of if you sing a song you’re connecting to emotionally, it's going to trick me into feeling my emotions. I'm not feeling your [pain], I don't know what happened to you, but you have just tricked me into feeling my own pain and my own emotions and that is an amazing thing. That's this miraculous thing about music. Film can do it too, art can do it, but music does it great. That’s where making an album like this ['Higher Truth'] is exciting and special. The downside is you pretty much have to do it on every song. You don’t get a free pass unless you write a joke song, which I'm not good at. If I wrote like the [Beatles’] ballad ‘Rocky Raccoon’ or something I could get away from it for a second. A song about a raccoon that gets in a gun fight.

Yes, music for me is not about my own pain, relationships, or breakups, I write about the world around me. I want the music to be a nature force big like a mountain, ocean, or hurricane. Music for me is really big and the closest thing I've experienced to something divine. I want people to be reminded of their inner warrior. We're in an important time, fighting for nature and what you believe in. I think we're hungry for more. I write pop music and it's very intellectual and full of emotion. I have many different styles within pop in my songs. Every song has a clear identity and asks for its own colour, its own mood. I'm really missing meaning in pop music and I have been for the last 20 years. I miss the force that we need and I believe that it's up to individuals. We don't have a machine to clear the water of plastic, we have to do it by hand. It's up to us, the people. The true power lies within the people it always has but somehow throughout history, the rich leaders have made it seem like power lies with one person. But that's so old-fashioned, we're getting out of that now, the power lies with the people. I really want to remind people of the power they have that they may have forgotten about.

If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room, would you trust it?
I mean I write poems in these songs dedicated to you
When you're in the mood for empathy, there's blood in my pen
Better yet where your friends and them?

It doesn't feel like it's just originating from my brain. It feels like I'm following an invisible thread of intuition, from one choice to the next... maybe I don't even fully understand once I've written it, but it just feels right. And I just trust that. And then over time, it reveals its layers of meaning to me. That's a mark of what I feel is a good song. It keeps me wanting to play it.

Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time.

For me, how I feel about what I wrote down turns into a song.