When I'm in a city that's just clean, concrete lines, I get really short of breath and confused. It's much more interesting to me when nature is creeping back and tearing the mortar apart between the bricks.

There's nothing better than not knowing what's going to happen until you put the pieces together.

So, I'm on Sesame Street, walking around with all these monsters, Elmo and his buddies, a whole bunch of chickens, a whole bunch of penguins and a number four dancing about. It was just pure joy, simple, ridiculous fun, stupid joy. There's no irony. Sesame Street is just a crazy great place to be.

You just never set roots; you take pleasure in simple conversations, because you know you're not going to have much more than that. It's very isolating, and that can be a good thing.

I guess there are a lot of people out there that think they're supposed to define themselves in isolation, but that's not necessarily the case.

I wrote the album [Metals] in the fall. In about four months, I went from zero to finished. It usually takes forever.

It's amazing when you find a photo of your grandparents when they were young because it's black and white and the care that they put into their appearance back then was so grown up and specific to that era.