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.

I still have a very nonintellectual, nonjudgmental relationship with melody and the music as I hear it all in my head.

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.

The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture.

I'm a product of my environment.

My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me.

I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school and every year I participated in the talent shows and the school plays, all of 'em.