I have really low self-esteem, and it's not easy for me to put myself on an album cover.

I don't like the sound of my own voice. And, for people I don't know, their impression of me is what they read on the internet, and they're so far off a lot of the time. I think people are intimidated by me, and I don't know why. Sometimes even my own bandmates can be intimidated, or irritated, by me. I come across as arrogant somehow. In reality, I've probably got the lowest self-esteem of anybody I know, which has really been rubbed in my face lately in personal situations.

I was trying to write a song based on a story in a random book of Puerto Rican short stories that I found in a thrift store. I thought it was really dark, and so I tried to interpret it. I've always been interested in writing from other people's perspectives and other gender perspectives.

I've always been interested in writing from other people's perspectives and other gender perspectives.

When I go on a nostalgia trip it's not aesthetic. For me it's about trying to recapture the smell or the feeling of something that I've experienced in the past personally.

We didn't have MTV, and I was desperate for something. You know, you're young, you want something off the beaten path. And Twin Peaks was like, surrealism on network TV.

I collaborate a little bit with different aspects of my own mind. I kick my own ass instead of kicking other people's asses.