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 anti-aging advert that I would like to see is a baby covered in cream saying, 'Aah, I've used too much'

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.

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 really like the sound of analog things where clearly there's something being touched. You can sense that something is handmade. So much with digital, there's a disconnect.

I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.

I've always felt that dark lyrics with dark music is pretty useless. Maybe that's a strong statement - not useless, but for me, it's just boring.