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.

You just want to go back to those 70s albums. Even a lot of the 90s indie records were still done on tape, and you hear the difference.

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.

Whatever you do has to be commercial and it can't be too distracting - it has to be background music, basically.

In Japan, you get on the bullet train or the airplane, and I loved the little speeches the stewardesses would do. They even do little speeches before you play gigs.

There's a perception that if an artist produces another artist, they're going to imprint on them. But I'm the opposite.

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.