I sometimes write as if I were talking to myself, or to a mirror, or to someone for the last time. There's this element of confrontation.

I wasn't an only child, but I was the youngest, and no one else in my family played music.

In high school I was in a band called Goodfight, but it was more me running around on stage. It was very punk inspired. Then I started to get into indie-rock and older music and decided I wanted to write my own stuff. I quit the band. Around 16 or 17, I started recording myself at home on keyboard and piano.

People are buying more vinyl now than they did in the late '90s or 2000s. I like having different mediums of the record. It's always interesting to see how the tapes end up looking because they are so tiny.

Go and experience life the way that someone else might experience it. Maybe you'll find meaning in a different corner of your brain. The fact that it changed doesn't negate the fact that it ever mattered.

You get to a certain age and it really occurs to you: "My mother and my father will not always be here. My spouse or my girlfriend or boyfriend are here right now, but someday they won't be." You realize that you need to like yourself.

I know it sounds so lame, but the songs are like my children.