I'm proud of the lyrics because I take a lot of care in writing them. I try to make it so people will want to go in and get really into the lyrics. I hope there are different corners to them, with lots of levels-without sounding pretentious.

I don't think it is too good especially with music to worry about authenticity, it can get in the way of doing something which comes naturally from your own head which is the most authentic thing [of all].

We're really into combining lots of different styles into one song: that's normal for us. It might seem arbitrary but we listen to a lot of music that does that.

In general, the musicians we met that made the most sense just said to do what feels right and try not worry about what other people think. I know that sounds stupid and simple. I feel like Neil Young has done that and he's still making albums. He's one of the people I really look up to as someone who has kind of stuck to their guns their whole career. Just making music for music.

We were thinking about how other people deal with this career on every song. We got to meet people like Thom Yorke and hear him say how it's never normal when fans just come up to you. It's always a strange job. We don't want to come off like we're pitying ourselves for having this job because it's really amazing in a lot of ways. But there's a lot of stuff that comes with it that we're not really comfortable with.

I have the same birthday as George Washington. No I don't. I don't even know who George Washington is.

There was this large group of people that we were talking about on the first album - "The Youth" - but we didn't really know what to tell them. We still don't know what to tell them, but we want to make it seem like maybe there's something we know that they want to know, too.