There's some quality you get when you're not totally comfortable.

I've personally reached the point where the sound of MP3s are so uncompelling, because so much is lost in translation.

I never had any expectations of winning a Grammy. It wasn't something I was set on, that I was hoping and praying and starving for.

I'm always looking for older equipment and ways of recording, but you can't escape the fact that it's all going to be digitized and reduced. I do think music sounds better when it's on tape and more simply recorded. I've been arguing with people for 10 years about tape versus digital, and I believe tape is absolutely essential in getting the sound that's conducive to the enjoyment of music. I wonder if it's going to go back to that. Sometimes I think it has to. As music becomes more computer-based, it's lost some emotional impact.

With my own music, I try to get away from things that are familiar and things that would be easy for me to go to.

I try not to do email; I try to talk to people on the phone.

Most of my early records were not cohesive at all, just collections of demos recorded in different years. 'Odelay' was the first time I actually got to go in the studio and record a piece of music in a continuous linear fashion, although that was written over a year.