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" I think you can hear all my hip hop influences in 'Just Kids.' "

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" I think I have always made really beat-driven pop-rock records. "

" I don't spend afternoons practicing my guitar to get better. I do read, though, to get inspiration for my lyrics. "

" When 'Young Love' came out, I was really excited, and it has been really special. "

" When I was in college, I wanted to study film. My first passion was to be a cinematographer. So maybe there's something innate in my music where it partners well with images. "

" There are people I love in Nashville and would not want to go a day without talking to, but I want to see the world. "

" For my father, he didn't know what 'Grey's Anatomy' was. He didn't know who John Mayer was. But when I showed up on the 'Law & Order' TNT promo spot, he thought, 'Wow, my son has made it.' "

" Minneapolis has always been a very special place for me. "

" I grew up in Oregon, so there was always a lot of that folksy, Bob Marley stuff. There was a mural of Bob Marley on a wall at my high school. "

" More than any other instrument, the relationship between an acoustic guitar and a microphone is super-important. The kind of mics that you use and your placement of the mics to the guitar can radically alter your sound. "

" The first year I moved to Nashville, I started playing these songwriter nights with people like Nickel Creek, Duncan Sheik, and even Ryan Adams... That was the first place I really started playing music, and I had to really step up my game. Really quick. Or get kicked off the stage. "

" Ultimately, when you write from a vantage point of faith, humility, and openness to the world around you, people have to respond because those same truths are instilled in them. "

" I love Bruce Springsteen's writing, but I grew up on '90s hip hop, like Tribe Called Quest. "

" From my experience, I've been honest about who I am and what I believe and the motivation behind my music. But I've played it in arenas that are for all people. I've pretty much stuck to that model my whole career. "

" When I first started writing music, it was to express that. I was trying to find God and trying to find meaning in my life. That's what my music was about. It wasn't to entertain. "

" There's something incredibly vulnerable about middle school for me. We're really impressionable during that period. The cement's still wet, so to speak, and a lot of things later in life are born during that season. "

" The criticism people could have of my music maybe is that it's somewhat schizophrenic at times. And if you don't like that, it could bother you. "

" I think my faith is a huge part of my music. But for me, it didn't make sense to be in any specific market. I write songs for a lot of different kinds of people. "

" The first record blew up and sold really well. 'City of Black & White' didn't sell as well, and that's when you wonder, 'Did I peak already?' "

" There's this song called 'Brad Chester,' which is like the depths of my family. It comes from a very personal place. "

" My dad was a scratch golfer growing up. When I'm on the road, I always bring my clubs with me. "

" I'm painfully a realist but ruthlessly an optimist. I think maybe it's because of my faith - I've always got the hope that there is something out there to make it all worthwhile. "

" I was an English major in college, so I really liked spoken word and poetry; it was what I did before I wrote music. "

" I've always been a writer. I've always done writing or spoken-word, hip-hop stuff with my friends. "

" I didn't know music would end up being my job, but I loved it so much I wanted to do it every day. "

" New Yorkers are historically tough crowds. "

" My songs have a layer of melancholy. "

" The first album was literally the first 12 songs I've ever written. "

" When we tour, there's always this unique quality to every town you visit... Touring, you get a sense of a collective identity for different cities. That's one of the things I love about my job. "

" I thought my second record was good, but it didn't have that smash hit we did on the first one that somehow found its way onto tons of formats of radio stations. "

" I never wanted to be on an exclusively Christian label. "