If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it. What I want is to provoke people. If you want a hit song, all you need to do is rewrite an old song. It might have been proven to work, but you won't be remembered the same way.

There's always haters, no matter what you're doing - whether they're complaining that everything you do sounds the same, or it's too different.

I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you're doing and why you're doing it.

I call tennis the McDonald's of sport - you go in, they make a quick buck out of you, and you're out.

Keep it in tune with the times, but don't write with the specific purpose of trying to create a hit. If you're doing it strictly to make money, you're crazy. There are easier ways to make money.

I have always been mainstream. It's so weird, because I don't see it as something negative at all. So many people see it as something negative.