I think everybody has a painter inside of them somewhere.

I like visual images and there are certainly other bands that have strong visual images going all the way back to Elvis Presley, but it's kind of like that's never really been my bag. Probably because I'm too shy.

My most cryptic, strange songs might be my most personal, but that isn't how people are going to receive them, because they don't know the code.

As soon as I got into music, I tried to be a working, real artist who gets paid for what he does, who doesn't have a day job.

People go back to the stuff that doesn't cost a lot of money and the stuff that you don't have to hand money to over and over again. Stuff that you get for free, stuff that your older brother gives you, stuff that you can get out of the local library.

I certainly have gotten caught up in the music business at various times in my life, mostly because you want to get along with whatever record company you're dealing with. I don't want to be flaky. I don't want to be some temperamental, hard-to-work-with musician.

I listen to Neil Young and jazz and classical stations and, if my girlfriend's driving, it tends to be Hall & Oates.