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.

I don't have anything to prove.

I don't have the capacity to write stuff consciously. When I do, it's really awful.

When I got hit by the car, I became depressed. As a result, I've been on antidepressants and I feel like I have no sexuality left. People complain about that side effect, but I love it. I feel outside of society.

The sober guy is always going to have this air of arrogance or self-righteousness, but it's not my intention. I just knew that if I drank, I'd have a drinking problem.

I think teenagers just don't have the persistence to pretend to like something they don't anymore. I used to do that - make myself like stuff that didn't immediately appeal to me. When you're 17 and checking out John Cage records from the library. It's not like it's got the hooks of a Ramones record, or a Beach Boys record. But at the same time, you're like, I know there's something in here that I'm supposed to understand. And then eventually you find it.

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.