My entire education in music was in reading interviews with bands like Stereolab and finding out about Brazilian music or a Romanian composer. You expose yourself to what people you look up to admire.

Everybody just needs to realize that when you write something you're just in one mood. I was told I needed to write it and it was overdue; I don't even remember what day it was.

Musicians and artists are not... it's not like politicians or something where you can't really affect them. There's not like this separate caste system where it's like, "I'm the musician, you're the audience. Never the two shall meet." It was a case where it was like, "Hey, you know what? I'm on your level, man."

I'm real critical of myself. I think a lot of what I've done is boring indie rock. I didn't intend it to be that way, but somehow milk gets added to everything.

I want to satisfy the listener, exactly. I want to entertain the audience. I want the people to leave the show with the feeling I used to leave shows with when I was young, and I couldn't get over it for another three or four days after it. I just kept reliving the set in my mind.

I read a lot - surveys of vernacular music. A lot of it is the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, which I've loved since I was in high school. They had it at the library and I always thought that was interesting, even when I was into punk and stuff. Just the history of storytelling and the amount of melancholy a lot of old music has.

We all come back to our little worlds.