Putting your ego aside and confronting your weaknesses and just letting things happen is hard. Not to use a Scientology term, but it's difficult to do an emotional or an artistic audit.

An mp3 is a compressed form of data. It's not the full spectrum. It's never going to sound as good as a record.

Music is kind of a strange business, and it's too weird of a job to have mean, conniving people around.

An mp3 is a compressed form of data. It's not the full spectrum. It's never going to sound as good as a record. I think one thing people forget is that every technological advance we fetishize had its place in time. CDs are usually an hour long because that's the amount a CD could hold - not because that's the optimal amount of time for any given musical expression. Side one and side two? That's a product of vinyl. But that's not necessarily dramatic form - you could argue that that was three acts.

I was a lusty kid who loved Tennessee Williams. Sexy plays. [For musicians] there are so many that it's hard just to say one. Certain things, like the first time you hear A Love Supreme, you're floored. It takes whatever you were listening to and blows a hole in it.

The most important thing is setting up these directives for yourself. Like, "I'm only going to use these three colors - go!" That's why Einstein wore the same thing every day; you don't want to have to reinvent the wheel every morning.

I wouldn't say I'm a very technical [guitar] player. I'm more intuitive - it's always more about chasing an abstraction.