Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does.

I'm ripe for the picking for the Scientologists - one of those creeps. Someone's got to find me. Some little weird cult can just pluck me up, because I'm ripe for the picking.

For a song I was bought Now I lie when I talk With a careful eye on the cue card. Onto a stage I was pushed, With my sorrow well rehearsed. So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it).

Desaparecidos try to be the opposite of apathetic. There are so many young people in America that are apathetic.

I understand why people get desensitized and roll their eyes when they hear a protest song, or even a politician making some flowery speech. It doesn't really change anything.

All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.

It's hard to get people to focus on one idea.