I live in L.A., and whenever I get together with anybody to write, everybody is obsessed and fearful and wants to write a hit for everyone else. They wanna write a hit for Rihanna; they wanna write a hit for Katy Perry.
I write good songs out of fear... fear of failure. Because if they're not good enough, you feel yourself starting to fall.
When I first started out in this business, it was easy because nobody wanted anything from me. But now everyone wants something from me, so it's hard to break away and just be a songwriter.
I feel the only way I can survive is to spend a lot of time writing songs. I have to have incredible, killer songs that also are hits, or I just don't have a chance.
You start to compete with yourself when your catalog gets bigger and bigger... I mean, everybody wants the next 'Bless the Broken Road,' but you don't write those every day, so it's difficult.
I'm so hard on myself that when I'm in the studio, I'll write 10 songs and only use one. So those nine songs that are left over, I always think, 'Where could these go? Who could they be for?'
Every song that we wrote for the first album made it. We didn't think about writing a bunch of songs and picking the best ones. We had to just make the best songs we ever wrote.
When I'm doing a session for another artist, it's a very scheduled thing, and it's kind of imperative that I write a song in that time. But if I'm trying to write a song for myself and I don't have an idea that day, I just can't force it.
There's the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: He's supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs you've been recording and then say, 'Guys, I don't hear any singles.' And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one.
Amy Winehouse asked me a while ago if I had written any new songs. I played her something, and when I had finished, she looked at me and said, 'Is that it? Is that all you've got?'
Well after 'Fast Car' was so huge, everyone was asking me, 'What's the next song?' At the time I just had ideas I was working on, but it was very clear I needed to finish another song ASAP, and that's how 'Perfect Strangers' came about.
It stresses me out writing songs,; I get really super nervous and speedy. I feel like I'm possessed.
If I have to try and write one more country single, I'll lose my mind.
The thing about this band is that every member of the band is a song-writer so that takes some of the pressure off.
