John Legend dishes out all of his holiday plans with Apple Music

R&B singer John Legend is planning to stay busy-busy these next few weeks. The legendary crooner pulled through to chop it up with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe to dish on everything from his new LEGEND (Solo Sessions) EP to what’s going on for the holidays.

John Legend dishes on everything with Zane Lowe

Rather than share the entire interview, check out some highlights and pulled quotes from Legend’s discussion with Zane Lowe.

John Legend Tells Apple Music About Stripping Down Songs From His ‘LEGEND’ LP for Apple Music With Love...

I never have really done an album like this where I just stripped the arrangements down and just did a simple piano version of each song. And the last time I did something like that was before I was signed as an artist, way back in the early 2000s. And so, this was really a way of going back to my roots. I remember performing in little spots like the Living Room and other places in New York, where I would just sit down at the piano, and that was it. And you just hear the song stripped down to their essence, and we wanted to finally go back to that and play some of these new songs, but with that interpretation on them.

It was beautiful recording. I really enjoyed the process. I loved just sitting down with the piano and coming up with the way that I would arrange the song and express the song. And then it was fun reimagining the way I would sing some of the songs, because some of them I stuck pretty close to the way I sang them in the original version, but just changed the background music.

John Legend Tells Apple Music About Looking Forward To Spending Time with Family During The Holidays…

Well, we're easing into the holidays. We'll work a couple more weeks for The Voice. I have a little bit more recording to do, and we'll try to get all of that done before the middle of December. And then once that comes, it's just going to be family time, holiday time. And I love that part of the year. My birthday falls during this time of year too. I'm a December 28th, Capricorn baby, so we're just going to enjoy the end of December and then get back to work in January.

John Legend Tells Apple Music About Prioritizing Taking Care of His Wife...

I care most about making sure I take care of my wife. My wife is carrying our next child. I always have to make sure she's take taken care of, and course appreciated for all that she does for our family. And then we take care of our kids and those are our main focus for Christmas, for sure.

John Legend Tells Apple Music What He Loved About His Las Vegas Residency…

We just finished our residency. We may bring it back at some point, but we haven't worked out when that would happen. But we were inspired by some of the references from the seventies. Elvis was one of them, and he really did make Vegas a thing. And in some ways, people looked at it as a place to go when your career's nearing its end. but now I feel like a lot of artists in their peak are going and a lot of artists that are still quite relevant currently are playing there now. And it's a place to celebrate everything that's come before, but also it is not a sign that you're done. It's a sign that you've gotten to the point where you have enough repertoire where you can play Las Vegas. And so, you see myself, Adele, Adele, Bruno, Gwen Stefani, so many great artists…You're seeing a lot of really great artists who are still really current and relevant doing it now. And I think it was inspiring doing it there, because it pushes you creatively to do some interesting and fun things. And we did some amazing things creatively that we've never done on tour before. And I had so much fun putting on the show. I've been telling my team, we got to figure out a way to get back there and do it again.