What you see at the Field Museum is only like, 10 percent of the collection. It's birds of paradise and passenger pigeons and in all these drawers that pull out, these specimens come out and it's spectacular. And it worked out.

This might be a controversial thing to suggest, but in a quest to understand and relate to terrorism or school shootings, sometimes it feels like it's real, the appeal. As we've seen with ISIS, it's not always the devout who are getting into it; it's just people looking for a sense of belonging. The more they feel they're up against, the more intensity the cause has. It's an epic clash of cultures, and both sides are playing that up, but it's human beings disaffected, detached, and lonely.

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

Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound. It's not trying to replace a band, per se. It's become a completely different thing. And it's not just simply an effect. It's just a very surprisingly intuitive thing.

What you see with your eyes when you're making music is going to have a profound effect on what you hear.

All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.