Maybe we're just stupid and don't realize you can't make music that sounds like a chase scene from a 'Scooby Doo' cartoon and have people take you seriously.

I think that especially in the U.S. there's this kind of sensationalizing of news - and making it almost like CNN and stuff are entertainment networks.

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.

Live we're a lot louder and noisier on the album. I think for the album we took a lot of time for the songwriting and we wanted to make good pop music, and I think there's plus and minuses to doing pop music and noise.

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.

Usually when I write lyrics I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of other stuff. Some of my favourite lyricists are like Lou Reed, kind of the classics - Bob Dylan and stuff like that.