Honestly, I didn't have the patience for biology or history in an academic sense, but I always liked the kind of big questions.

The first splurge of creativity is kind of free, and the last 30 percent is painstakingly hard work, but it's good to light a fire and make it public and create that expectation. It's become part of the writing process, really, a way to ask the audience what they think, how they think it's going. I can't write songs in a vacuum.

The first notes I still play when I start a sound check are classical. Those are my roots.

The music that I write is often not necessarily full of doom and gloom. You'll notice in most of the darkest songs, the music is actually pretty peaceful and lulling.

Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.

Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

Melodies are just honest. They can only be what they are. Words have the capacity for deception. Theyre all full of subtext, and some of them are cliche and overused and vernacular. Theyre tricky. All I can say is, words are tricky.