I think my whole generation's mission is to kill the cliche.

You have to shelve a lot of your inspiration. There's only so much you can do with one record.

Growing up, a film was an action film or it was a comedy or it was romantic, but you don't really see such stark lines between genres nowadays.

I think everybody should just turn off their TV machines and make up their own songs about whatever comes to mind-their couch, their friends their loaves of bread. Everybody's got their own songs. There should be so many songs out there that it all turns into one big sound and we can put the whole thing into a pickup truck and let it roll off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

I didn't want to be on a major label. I wanted all the attention and the noise to go away because I wanted to be something a little bit more substantial.

Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.

There's some quality you get when you're not totally comfortable. When you're not doing what you're used to, you could completely fall on your face. You could completely blow it.