When you're playing festivals, you only get a half-hour. It's like a meat market. You don't get to be artistic. You don't get to play music. It's called a showcase for a reason.

Bringing the individual into it music only distracts from the universal and makes it trivial. And then it's easy to wash your hands of it because you might not be from their background, or you might disagree with their personal perspective. So you discount it and go back into your corner instead of coming out and engaging with everything.

I think I try to do a lot of things to weed out casual fans.

I don't like going to the studio. It just seems too cold. There's no crowd to react to, or share anything with; it's just talking into a microphone that's going into a computer.

I think I have some very meaningful relationships with people; we all do. At the same time, I recognize that everyone is following their own heart; there's been people who have left my life, and I don't have a problem with that. This is a transitory world; we're all spirits just looking for love and finding it and holding on.

It's not like that when you're a songwriter - songwriters aren't like pulp writers or journalists, even. You just follow the muse. It's called muse-ic. Whenever the muse decides to bestow her inspiration on the songwriter, then the song is born.

With death comes a choice. And death is a choice.