When I was 10, I would hear songs like "I Love You Always Forever" by Donna Lewis on the radio, and I want to make stuff that a 10 year old might hear coming out of the radio and think, "Yeah! I love this!"

No one goes to BrooklynVegan to read about content, they just go for drama. It's a tabloid, the scum of indie.

When you meet someone, a friend, who's living out on the road, or living semi-homeless, or leading their life in a radically different way, it makes you think about your own life in a really critical way and feel completely disoriented.

I saw this wide-eyed girl with big ears and a pink nose who's too excited. I wanted that part of myself to sing lead.

Radio is so cutthroat, but I do feel like the music industry is structured so differently than it used to be. I'm amazed and in awe of artists who can build a parallel universe that's so big and clearly defined that the mainstream finally has to pay attention.

You'd have to be kind of a bonehead not to feel pressure.

The music industry has completely restructured itself in the last couple of years because it hasn't been making money. Labels are signing bands they trust as artistic entities, instead of cash cows. They're signing bands because they believe that the bands have tastes beyond anything they could concoct themselves.