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.

What's cool about indie rock is that one band can do effectively the same thing as another band, and one band nails it, and the other one doesn't. I like that elusiveness.

I'm not a home-studio guy. I spend a lot of time working by myself developing songs, but I really need some other counterpart to help me pull it all together, because you go nuts working if I had to finish an entire project all within my own head.

There's kind of this unequaled thrill of playing a half-finished song, it's kind of sense of slight embarrassment; like you're blushing. I like doing that. I did that with "Eyeoneye" and it was almost a curse on the song for a while; I debuted it when it was half-finished in a very public way

I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.

Some of your best songs come from a desperate attempt to escape, so sitting in an airport for hours I can just start pulling out little fragments of songs from my head. A lot of times a melody will just occur to me and be my companion for a couple of months.

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.