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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.