You're an accomplished songwriter in your own right. What made you decide to cover "Sailing?"
I love that whole sense of writing a ballad that didn't speak of any particular gender. He didn't say nothing about a man or a woman; he was just talking about feeling free. He made everybody understand that sometimes you need space within yourself to know exactly what's going on in your life.
One of my favorite tracks off of Avant is "Material Things." What was the inspiration or background of that song's concept?
The truth of the matter is "Material Things" is about how women think that we are materialistic. We are to a certain extent. But the truth of the matter is that the materials don't mean nothing if the lady don't see them, you know what I mean?
So the reason for me writing that song is to say, "Yeah, we love Dolce & Gabbana. We love all this ice. You know, everything." But without the woman, it's nothing. If they weren't on earth, I wouldn't care to have it, period. Basically, we did the song for them. That was my point. That woman, she's the biggest piece of material that he needs.
That's what starts everything, what we get our haircut for. If they weren't here, we'd be cool but we wouldn't be without a woman on earth. So I'm just saying materials don't mean that much to me.
Is there a particular song on your album that you feel hits home on a personal level?
"When It Hurts." I wrote that song with my mom and my sisters in mind, because everybody comes back to me with their problems. You know, "Why don't you guys do this? Why don't you guys do that?" I guess that's a record for everybody that's going through some stuff in life – to know that sometimes you got to deal with the pain. You shouldn't be hurting for years. Sometimes it's okay to hurt, but don't hurt for too long. Understand that it just builds you as a person to have you deal with life in general.
I was looking back at your album sales and, after doing a little bit of digging, I found something that really caught me off guard. You have a really big fan base outside the US. Were you ever surprised by the fact that your European sales have exceeded your sales in America?
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