When I first started writing these kind of songs that would eventually become Decemberists songs, I was writing them because I knew that nobody was listening at the time and that it wouldn't hurt to challenge myself and get weirder and see if I could alienate more people

Living in war, and being a wartime band, I don't think there's any way that can't somehow influence the songwriting.

When everybody is playing at the same level, there's so much more noise. And there's less incentive for the people who should be rising above that noise to take time and invest in what they're doing. It just becomes about hustling and grabbing attention.

There's some things there that you just have to draw the line. Some people are just not going to like it. We would hope that everybody would like it.

Music has been already devalued by the consumer. There's an expectation that it should be free so the race to the bottom has already been won.

No-one wants to hear anything spoken in earnest anymore, unless it happens to involve unrequited, teenage love.

I wish I had a better range, but I really have a super-limited one. Barely a tenor, dips into baritone - that's about it.