I was just very into things that were the opposite of what other people liked. I didn't want to listen to music that I could find at a friend's house. My identity was really forged around that, and you know, eventually that kind of identity gets dismantled and fed to the vultures. But I was somehow on my own mission.

You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out.

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.

Confidence was never in short supply in my case. If anything, I think I overshot the mark with confidence way too early in my career, and gradually, it's about just getting more humble and wanting to sit down more.

There's always room for improvement. I'm always focused on the results, and those are the precise things that I don't really experience as a part of the performance.

The music usually occurs to me as a complete sound, and then I have developed the skill of being able to translate that into a fully realized song.

I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things.