Albert Hammond, Jr.

Ties were always my thing. When I was 18, on Sunday, when everyone was taking off for a casual day, I'd wear a suit to go have brunch.

It's so funny because when I talk about fashion and menswear designers, it's really like a small percentage of my head. I don't mind talking about it, but I always worry that it's gonna seem to the outside world that that's all I think about.

Little moments of excitement shape the sound of a record. You don't have anything, and then you start to have little parts that give you the energy to move forward because you start to see something.

When I'm not on the road, I try to intake about 300 grams of protein a day, which is a lot. I got really into how your body absorbs it and how you feel and how crazy it is when you intake that much food and actually feel better, your brain works better, and you actually lose weight even though you're eating more. It's so methodical.

My personality can be extreme in all ways, even in positive ways; I've learned that.

When you put on music, just feel it; it's a different sense. I walk around with music in, and it can just change my world in seconds.

Change isn't a scary thing. It's constant and inevitable.

When someone's really good at encapsulating human emotion and putting it out in a form that can reach a variety of people, that's going to have a big effect when he's no longer there.

My idea was you can't dress for the stage, you have to dress all the time like you're onstage. And so I would just always wear suits or some form of it. I wanted people to know I played music. That was kind of how you would find other people: you would just walk around looking a certain way and end up meeting someone who liked the way you look.

When people ask me for playlists, I always put in 'Moonlight Sonata' because it is my favorite song. I play it all the time.

Over time, naturally, you lose your innocence from gaining knowledge. You can't be innocent forever, but there's something in innocence you need to regain to be creative.

That's the purpose of creative stuff: when you really love what you do, you have to know at some point, or points, you're not going to be good at it. That's just the process of learning. I can edit it and try to be as perfect as I can, but I'm still going to have my vulnerable spots and my weaknesses.