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!

It's sort of cheesy to introduce that to the drums - those dings and dongs and bell sounds. That's definitely one of the reasons people are like 'oh yeah, they sound like Tom Waits, with those trashcan drums.' But at the same time, it sounds so good! And it introduces this... I mean, it's not tuned, but somehow it adds this extra layer of melodic texture.

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.

We're a live band. Some bands write their songs in the studio - we don't do that. We're playing songs on this tour that were written three days before the tour. And it feels good to try these songs.

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

It's like, symbolic language, the way that people approach dense poetry... it always bugs me, because that approach suggests that it's like a mystery novel, and that if you can put together the clues, you can come up with one singular answer.

The whole idea of civilization as an understandable narrative is a bit nuts. It's the most problematic of delusions.