I rummage around in artistic things from the past. If you don't understand the context, they wouldn't make any sense. I rummage around in conceptual ideas of the future, but if you don't know the source of the thinking, [it] wouldn't make any sense.

I want to make great songs.

I've rarely done anything that's overtly self-destructive without consciously knowing what I'm doing. And then of course, the astute journalist jumps forward and says, "Why are you being calculated?" Calculated seems to assume a sinister intent. My intent is always for artistic effect.

I mean, I'm certainly not a 'teaophyte,' or whatever the word would be.

I'm an experimental artist in a field that doesn't celebrate experimentation. It celebrates self-destruction, which I guess you could say is a creative endeavor.

Everybody likes to run around on their phones, including me, but we don't always want to hear who's sweating somewhere in some non-air-conditioned factory to create those things so that they can keep the prices down.

The music business - and I guess you could say any artistic endeavor - usually rewards those who are on the leading edge of where everything is going, but you can't be too far.