We would make songs and the producers said we should play it for my dad. I was kind of scared I didn't know what to think cuz we were just joking around.

When my dad died a lot of songs came and they're still coming.

I had just lost my dad and I remembered all the songs we used to go and hear at concerts and the records around the house and sometimes we'd play together.

My mom and dad played this music all the time when I was growing up so to me songs by Jerry Lee and Fats Domino are the classics they're the best songs ever.

I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up my dad had just got out of jail and he had a great record collection. He had - it was all - these were the songs. So I heard a lot of these songs like my whole life so for me it was easy. I already knew what I was going to sing.

My dad was a huge country music fan but he also had a band and he sang. So he'd listen to a lot of music and the songs that he'd learn for the band were more from the male artists. So my earliest country memories were Waylon Jennings Conway Twitty George Jones Johnny Paycheck even.

I have four shelves covered with journals that I've written. Dad and I are writing songs together. I've probably written 100 songs.

Courage: Great Russian word fit for the songs of our children's children pure on their tongues and free.

I feel like my music is just an extension of my acting. I treat the songs like scenes that tell a story... it's very similar. My favorite thing is when cartoon fans show up to my live gigs! They are always the most kick-butt audience members 'cause they're not trying to act all cool like a lot of the music fans do! It's refreshing!!

I think some people record songs and make records a certain way to cater to radio. If you're born to make commercial music that's cool. But if you're born to not make commercial records maybe you're meant to cater to another market.

I was asked to do a test commercial shoot for an Apple product which didn't mean much to me at the time. Some music player that holds all your songs. Sounded cool to me and I never gave up an opportunity to work especially with the possibility of it turning into a national commercial. Coolest job I did in that time.

I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy N.W.A. LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.

I speak onstage to try to establish some method of communication. The songs are supposed to be a way of communicating. But speech and drinks and sometimes chocolates are also a way of communicating.

People naturally change a lot during their 20s so my songs reflect that progression.

Set lists are tough because you come up with this structure of how the songs are going to go from one to the next but at the same time you have to be spontaneous and take requests and change the set list at the drop of a hat.

These songs are old friends I have entertained myself with when I'm washing the dishes driving to the store and walking down the aisles. The ones that you sing when you're driving in the car and as a singer you always go back to them.

I listened to it last night for the first time since we started this project. I went out to my car and put it in and went to an empty parking lot and just listened and read the little pamphlet that came with it. After two or three songs I burst into tears.

I've made club songs and I've made radio songs and I've made the car songs.

A lot of the songs start with an image. I was sitting there playing the guitar and I pictured this old dirty green car with the window rolled down in the hot hot hot Texas heat and this beautiful woman I knew when I was a kid sitting behind the wheel looking out at me.

That's what I love. Not being interrupted sitting in a car by myself and listening to music in the rain. There are so many great songs yet to sing.

Of course I'm older now. I'm in a different place in my life than when I wrote the songs for 'Car Wheels' or 'Essence' or whatever. Different things were going on.

I could play it safe by recording songs that are familiar but am I expanding myself as an artist by doing covers? It's a catch-22. It's called show business: The word 'business' is in it and you've got to be a businessman. But then again you have to be true to yourself as an artist.

The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible. So I'll play in bands and record and play songs with other people but for me it's a form of expression that all I need is me. I don't need cameras or agents I can just have a piano and sing and feel totally verified.

It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down wrote this song and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people.