I enjoy the collaboration. I always envied people in bands who got to have that interaction.

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

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.

When you say 'state' you mean 'national.' National Socialism. That is what Mussolini and Hitler did. National Socialism. State Capitalism. They've changed the name.

I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

Maybe certain aspects of what I was doing were reacting against what was happening or what people said, too. That's something that happens when you're starting out. After some time goes by and you get a little perspective, you realize that you don't need to react. You can just carry on with what you're doing. That took me a long time figure out; I've only gotten to that point in the last five or 10 years.

It was disturbing to me that an idea or a song could become something so different from what you originally intended. It's like if a friend took a stupid picture of you at a party on their phone, and the next thing you knew, it was on every billboard.