More on Next Album

To ID: "The new album is my absolute greatest work I've ever done, and I'm so excited about it. The message, the melodies, the direction, the meaning, what it will mean to my fans and what it will mean to me in my own life – it's utter liberation. I'm on the quest to create the anthem for my generation for the next decade, so that's what I've done."

To Ryan Seacrest: "Really when I started writing this album I wanted to put the album together in an innovative way because I wanted to music to be innovative and I wanted the message to be innovative. I already had the 'sonic' idea and the 'message' idea."

To ID: "I will never tell [who the producers are] because as soon as I tell, everyone starts working with them. So all I can say is that nobody knows who they are. They're all new."

To Ryan Seacrest: "I basically just asked friends of mine to produce the record for me, and we created a name for ourselves. We're called The Banditos. (I get overruled in the crew because it's three guys.)