I made so many recordings with junky mics and crappy mixing consoles, you have to use what your tools are and in some ways that's been inspirational.

If you can just focus on creating your art whether that's music or writing a book or painting trust me it is really hard to balance that with a personal life. You have to be willing to sacrifice sometimes things in your personal life if your ultimate goal is to pursue things as an artist.

I think because I worked really hard before I had any kind of success it kept me grounded. You just don't know how long that success is gonna be there.

All music done, as I said, through low res mp3 and $5 earbuds and so I think as a producer or a band you want your music to sound good in that medium. Sometimes when I'm doing a mix I'll listen to it on my laptop, on the crappy speakers on my laptop. It lets me know what the tracks gonna sound like if someone else listens to it that way.

I love analogue tape and I love digital, they both have pluses and minuses and I don't really feel like I have to use one or the other. I love digital because it's really great for songwriting because you can just cut and move choruses around and pull chunks of songs. It's really easy to hear quickly "Oh, maybe the arrangement should be like this."

I made so many recordings with junky mics and crappy mixing consoles, you have to use what your tools are and in some ways that's been inspirational.

Compression is a necessary evil. The artists I know want to sound competitive. You don't want your track to sound quieter or wimpier by comparison. We've raised the bar and you can't really step back.