At 35, I'm thinking, Oh, I don't have any of that initial inspiration that I had before, all that angst. I always thought I would burn out very quickly.

I always want to be a member in the audience, and I want to hear it from their point of view and see it from their point of view so I can know if it's good. But that's just my issues, not a real problem.

Everything comes with hard work. You never get to stop working. I don't see myself ever getting comfortable enough to not have to worry about working.

I sang "Patience" by Guns N' Roses for my sixth grade talent show and I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. It was all very, very theatrical. It was only later that I separated the two and thought of myself as quite the opposite of an actor.

I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them.

It's just about pushing yourself to realms that are uncharted. I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing, I don't know if it's any good, I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line. Not just a creative fantasy world or something like that, but a mood too.

I always want to do something that just sort of fits the mood. It's supposed to help the song, it's not supposed to take away from the song or re-contextualize it. I always feel like the less you make it a conceptual territorial debut, the better.