My aunt, Rosie Gaines, sung with Prince - 'Diamonds and Pearls.' And at the time, I didn't realize how big of a song that was. I just thought, 'Oh, that's my auntie singing with Prince. That's cool.'
'Feeling Good' is a peek into my life through song.
In so far as I have any beliefs, I suppose I'm like that old Peggy Lee song, 'Is That All There Is?' I want to believe there's something else going on, but what that something else is I don't pretend to know.
I actually did a project with my puppet one time in fourth grade. I made up a song that went with the rhythm to a song I do now. And I had to make up a song about a penguin and research and put information in the song about a penguin. And I sang it with my duck, because I didn't have a penguin puppet, but close enough.
'Endless Love' is such a perfect love song for a wedding or for a Valentine, because that is the committed kind of endless love. All the lyrics are perfect.
With every song I have a person in mind who, in a perfect world, would perform with me. Usually I end up not getting that person, and I'm forced to settle for someone else.
I am a songwriter. I do get to put my personal experiences in song.
No fake stuff. If you have a personal relationship with a female, it'll be easier and more real to do a song.
There's always a personal satisfaction in writing a song by yourself. You get the inspiration, and see it through, and you're done. It's focused and very personal.
There's a lot of personal stuff that can go into songwriting but there's also a lot of dramatization and fictionalization. You have to do that to make a good song.
It's a really personal thing for me to write a song.
I write songs about stuff that I can't really get past personally - and then I write a song about it and I feel better.
'Peter Pan,' I think, was a game-changer. That was the first song that really had some heartbeat to it... I think that's the song that got people's attention.
With Free, we had phased out all of the blues material and wanted to phase in all original material, and the only song that stayed from our blues past was 'The Hunter' by Albert King. People just loved that. And I said, 'We have to write a song that will top that - otherwise, what are we doing here?' That was the birth of 'All Right Now.'
The opportunity to record the song came when Phil Collins' record label, Atlantic, was doing a tribute album to him and they asked all these different artists to do renditions of his songs.
To fans in a festival setting it's like a picnic. You want to have a good time with your friends in that crowd. And in the background you hear the band play, 'Oh, that's my favorite song!' everyone is there to enjoy the afternoon and that's about it.
The pigeon dance came from a group from Rio de Janeiro who had a song in around 2012. A trend was started when I did the dance at home. Everyone started copying me.
I hate when I get pinned down to a genre. I have a sound, a lane I want to go down, but I never want to be stuck in my song choices.
'A Pirate Looks at 40,' we had to do that song. I've been covering that forever.
Someone recently played me 'Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell' by Das Racist. That should be my theme song.
