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.

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 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.

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.

We hate our heroes, you know. That's one of the great things about this whole deconstruction thing - there's no more heroes. It's always been there, you just look at people's reactions, and when the good guys are skunks, those parts stick with us.

One thing I've always been proud of is that vicious dichotomy between the pretty controlled, angular playing of the band, and my - I don't want to talk about myself as a 'wild man' or anything, but I have trouble staying on the beat.

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.