These are things that I continue to enjoy speaking about. The woods. Boats. Greeks. I think the real heart of it, is really being in love with these Dutch paintings over the last several years.

An acceptance of your cultural inheritance, and at the same time a dislike of it, is a building block of good art.

I'm really happy that people are starting to hear my band, and we are so happy to be conduits for all this other happiness, and this emotional response. So, I can't be like, "that doesn't matter to me, I'm an artist, I exist apart from that!" But on the other hand, if you buy into that too much, you're setting yourself up... if I start thinking, "well, people at the show really liked one song, maybe I should write more songs like that," then I'm in trouble.

People are intended to resist symbolic interpretation, as well. At times, they break through - there are little hints of 'this song is about this,' but if you were to come here and be like, 'well, I've got the lyrics right here, let's go through 'em,' that wouldn't really work!

Bruegel has these paintings of people just... interacting with each other. And there's this special wink - it's not a celebration of nature, it's people that are mongrels, and half-wits, and they're doing terrible things. I don't know, it just seems like something worth singing about.

Ten people who are into our music is better than three hundred people who are just standing there.

Live is best. You have movement, and I think we should do as much as we can to put that sense of movement in the recorded music.