For a really long time, I've been trying to find balance where I can talk about my feelings and be upfront with people, confront issues and not have to beat them to death or ignore them.

As far as keeping my sanity, it's something I've only recently tried to focus on as a means of self-preservation.

My mother, father and brothers (I was the youngest of three boys), were all very sarcastic and we were a complete Irish-Catholic family. We didn't talk about our feelings ever, and if we did, we were yelling about them - there was no in-between. That's just carried over so many ways in my life and sabotaged relationships, sabotaged creative stuff.

I would prefer that, rather than sitting down and giving someone advice, I would way rather write a song about what I was going through. I think that's a pure, organic process of learning from someone else's mistakes.

When you write a song you're more or less saying, This is everyone. I think this is everyone. It doesn't necessarily have to be this thing where I go out and I'm like candy-striping, or becoming a therapist or something. I think that maybe, maybe I'm supposed to [be a musician], because of that fact.

If you do the right thing, the right thing will come down the path.

I got really lucky when I found somebody that I want to be friends with forever.

It does feel really good to sing songs about somebody that I really respect, admire, love, care about and am so passionately attracted to after all this time.

I'm three years into my recovery from heroin and all this stuff and I want to be able to help people. But they have to do it on their own.