I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

I'm so socially awkward. I really had to put myself out there and meet new people.

Being in a class with kids, meeting new people, and borrowing notes from other students - I've never done that before. I've always had to fend for myself.

The scariest thing is to go into a new situation for myself, and yet I have a job where I do that every few months, meet a hundred new people, and then have to perform in a very highly pressurized environment.

I push myself in a lot of aspects when I write a song. I write a piece and where most people would stop and say, 'Oh, that's the hook right there,' I'll move that to the first four bars of the verse and do a new hook.

I don't know who I can compare my style to because I listen to everybody from old to new. If I hear stuff that I like, I'll definitely gravitate to it and spin it in my own way. I'm a mixture of a lot of people, honestly, but I'm myself.

I'm obsessed with how people talk! Accents, dialects... So whenever I go someplace where an accent is extremely distinct - Minneapolis, New Orleans, Jamaica, Vancouver - I always find myself trying to pick up the subtleties of their patterns.

The people I idolized I saw once a year on the Tony Awards. I would buy the cassette tapes of the various Broadway shows and scour the photos inside the recording package. That's how I exposed myself to the arts - New York and professional theater felt like a very distant thing.

Share This Page