It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much.

Hip-hop music has done a very good job of maintaining the political context, where they stand and not giving a sh-t what people think.

We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul.

And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings.

I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone.

Pronouns really don't matter in a song - 'I' or 'he' or 'she' or even subscribing a lyric to an inanimate object.

To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.