I just had a really crappy time in school and I spent a lot of time writing songs and not doing work. I started talking to Noah - Panda Bear - about recording a really solid album, spending a lot of time on it to get it to sound exactly the way we wanted it to.

Things have changed. The suburbs are developed, but other parts, like where we recorded Spirit and Danse Manatee are still woodland and farmland.

It's too bad music can't be like movies. For me, playing music and listening to music and creating music is very environmental. It creates a certain environment; it sets a specific mood.

I didn't really know why I wanted to go to college. I didn't really have a reason to go there other than the fact that everybody else was doing it.

An important meeting point for me was realizing the similarity between a DJ set and a Grateful Dead set: I grew up listening to how the Dead would take a song and just jam on it, and then transition into another song.

I always thought it was important for my lyrics to come from a really honest place.

There's something scary about the unknown. And maybe the scariest movies couldn't ever be made because they are too deep in somebody's head, too unknown to get out.