I've literally opened it up to suggestions and it's totally chaotic and kind of a bad idea. You don't need the actual feedback to get a sense. When you're showing a song for the first time, people can feel that newness.

The orchestra's an amazing instrument, but I don't want to just arrange my songs for it. I think that might be kind of boring and a little bit overdramatic, perhaps. I'm still just having too much fun doing it my way, for the time being.

I have the barn, it's just kind of like a studio. Almost all artists have la studio to work in, and that's really what it is. A place to get away. I'll spend maybe four days out there if I can, just completely immersed - like where I don't bathe or brush my teeth for a few days, just get up and make coffee and experiment until the sun goes down.

I've never approached classical music in a formal way, ever. I couldn't read very well. I'd have to play every piece and internalize it, almost as if I had written it myself.

I finished touring the last record and I started recording new .I never really left the bubble, which is I think a good thing. I was just very focused. Maybe I should have taken a break or something, and not done such a long push.

It's like you don't know you're making a record unless you're half-killing yourself.

I didn't have the patience for the research, or anything like that. I just like how it sets the imagination off. It's just an area that's very fertile for great words. Great metaphors, potentially.