After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise.

With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.

It's very common to think that we're always evolving, that we've changed so much from our younger selves, that within decades we've transformed into these different people. We like to think that. I feel in some ways that I am still so much my younger self. There are ways that I'm different: I feel like I'm wiser and kinder. But I think a lot of the impulses are still the same. I learned that.

I think hip-hop does a very good job of infusing comedy and humor and wit into music, a lot more than other genres.

I've honestly always been an overly analytical, highly observant person. I was playing music but thinking about it at same time, which was sort of exhausting. Aside from the pain of writing - you're not really in a gang like you are in band, it's a little bit lonelier - I think it was always something that I'd wanted to do. So the transition wasn't abrupt or painful.

I guess the role of art is to make something that is ambiguous and complex.

After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise.