When I try to explain to people the big influences in my life, or at least when I first started, the most important ones were my friends who were also writing songs and were typically four or five years older than me.

If there's ever a kid out there that can't afford to buy the music, I still want them to hear it, and hopefully they'll go to the show, or buy a T-shirt from the band. That's the idea.

When everything is lonely I can be my best friend.

In a way, to have whatever people talk about as "crossover success," I think it means you start making bad music. I mean, when I'm flipping through the channels and see the VMAs or something, I don't really see any music there.

A lot of the mythology that sprung up around Haile Selassie, it's not like something he asked for, having people deify him. That's pretty heavy. I don't know what you do in that situation.

When people have real faith in something, it's fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind.

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.