I think that half of us feel fraudulent in our lives anyway. There's that strange disconnect of not really knowing what we're doing sometimes, or why it matters. It's our existential crisis.

I'll admit that I'm not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast.

I think that there's always an assumption, when a band goes on hiatus or stops playing, that there's some acrimony brewing under the surface.

It wasn't just like, "I want to make a record that sounds like classic rock" at all. It was more like, "I want to make a record that is a little more unsettling and maybe isn't as easily understood now." That just seemed more important, like, for me to make as an artist, than it was to make something to make people feel safe right away.

From a self-conscious standpoint, it's hard to see myself on a screen in a way that isn't just me playing music or doing something silly.

To me, the grotesque is like a sonic manifestation of reality. I don't know how you could look out onto our world and see only beauty. And I like beautiful things. I like the aesthetically harmonious. But I am much more attracted to something that is off-kilter. It is a truer reflection of not only nature, but the human spirit - the state of the world. I just think everything feels a little off.

I wrote so much about fandom and participation for NPR that I eventually realized my most fertile way of participating in music is to actually play it, at least in a way that made the most sense to me.