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.

This is a particular thing, you know, catholic stories of martyrs who had their head removed and then continued to be miraculous in the last moments of their life.

I come from an art history background. I studied at a master's degree level; I chose to dork out on art for much of my adult life. A lot of my heroes are artists and a lot of my musical heroes have an artistic side.

There's more to life than listening to rock music.

You think you've made something really great, but there's a reason why it's not resonating the way some previous work did. But it's not that easy to just replicate. Some people think, "Oh, just go do that thing you used to do before." But it just doesn't work like that. It's a lot more mysterious or slippery.

I'm not saying that people have to listen to rock music. It's a great, cool thing and it can really be liberating for a lot of people but, hey, so can Charles Dickens so I'm not going to judge.

I think that painting is a very ancient form of expression.