The only way I was allowed to play was by convincing bands to let me do a few songs while they set up. That went on for years.

I don't remember half of the new bands, though - and I think that's kind of where we're going. It's turning into just a big derby of songs. May the best song win.

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.

You spend so many months and years in the studio, and you see the clock ticking and so much time spent on the minutiae of technical things. And I just thought it'd be fun to do something extremely fast and get that rush of something that had some energy, something that you weren't tired of when you finished it.

I'm more critical of my songwriting than anybody, but I've worked really hard in the last five to 10 years to improve. I didn't take it all that seriously when I started. It was a little bit of a stigma to being a songwriter or a folkie back then. I did a lot of send-ups of sensitive singer-songwriter stuff when I was starting out, which limited my development as a songwriter in a way. I wasn't really fully given license to explore that until the mid-90s. I'm still working on it; I'm a little bit of a late bloomer.

I've done so many albums where I've been in the studio for 14 hours a day for six months just trying to come up with things on my own. It's a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I'm trying to do myself.

If someone is making a judgment when they don't have firsthand experience, it's intolerant. How can you make a judgment on something you don't know about?