It's easy to be lazy when there's food lying around backstage or there's a fast-food joint a couple blocks away. But if you walk a little further, ask around a bit, of course there are exciting things to discover.

Music should be universal. My life perspective, my lifestyle - I'm not going to impose that on the people that listen to my music. That's kind of a perverse form of snobbery I like to reject.

You can't write for the cultural environment - if you do that, by the time it comes out, that cultural environment has passed. You have to be aiming for something that's original - that's the only way you can have any kind of impact.

The Beatles were huge for me, ... I used to jump around the room to the red album, the one with all the early hits on it. It made you feel euphoric. It was a sensation I couldn't get from anything else, whether it was playing football, swimming or even seeing 'Star Wars.'

Of course, there's a certain type of person who feels that anything which becomes mainstream has to be rejected immediately. And that's part of the indie-alternative snobbery and hierarchy and elitism.

I want to change and try new ideas - allowing your sonic identity to evolve in your music and not being afraid of that. You see musicians hit upon something that works, and then go, "Let's keep doing that for 10 years." And that idea kind of terrifies me a little bit. It becomes like a day job then.

Boredom or being sick of what you've done before is a big part of being in a band.