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

Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.

I think when I was pretty young I got really into the tone of my instrument and I remember just playing one note for an hour to just kind of feel the resonance of the violin.

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.

The real drag is trying to fly from country to country, day of show, with all your gear. You get hassled all the time. It's hard trying to keep it together.

No, it's not dissatisfaction that inspires me to tinker with my songs, it's just restlessness.

The instrumental record is a bit subtler. It's the kind of stuff on sound check, when I first pick up my violin and start to play, the kind of melodies that just pour out of me. Some of them sound very classical. Some of them sound experimental, polyrhythmic loops that I make.