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.

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.

You don't expect people to go, "music has just been reinvented!" But the hope is that people won't say, "this is the most boring cliché." I mean, that's one of my pursuits, is trying to not become a cliché, or get stuck in that. But even that's a cliché in itself! It's difficult! But I think it's worth it.... It's a real vicious circle there.

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.

Tour is disgusting, actually, I have no idea how people do it. Your brain would go to rot, unless you really, really worked hard at making sure it didn't.

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.

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.