Actually, I was having dinner with Michael [Stipe, of R.E.M.] when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that.

I was part of a generation that changed the world - and it was taken over by poseurs.

That's the real endeavor: to try to create that direct conduit from the pure consciousness of your creative voice to the person who's a craftsman who can go into the world and consistently deliver new things worth paying attention to.

You have to keep adapting to the times. If you kind of go with it, it can kind of fun.

Everybody I'm working with now is a friend. And I would be very, very remiss to work with anybody in the future who has not shown me who they really are.

I look at other members of my generation who have basically done one thing, and one thing well, and have been handsomely rewarded for it.

Great music completely obliterates any conceptions of genre.