When people hit on feeling a certain melancholy or elation, it's a really exciting moment. I think making that connection is the goal, and what makes something great.

Ironically, when I was playing in my first band, I would deliberately not write down any lyrics. I have a really good memory and I would just keep them in my head.

I guess the drinking and the drugs are interesting to me because the way we use them and our society uses them, we kind of manufacture highs and lows.

I made a decision at some point to live a nontraditional life. I've become like, the opposite of a consumer. I just want freedom. I don't want stuff. I don't want clutter. I just want to be able to move freely. I want to be good to the people I love. But I don't want stuff. I just want, you know, love and big ideas.

I really want to write a novel. A few years ago I went so far as to do the cliché thing and rent this house in upstate [New York]. I still have the story, but I got 15,000, 20,000 words in and it was like, This is falling apart. I can't figure out.

People think of songwriting as a very personal thing: A guy gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he sings his heart out, bares his soul.

I think the biggest thing - and this I think is true of songs but also of movies and books and art in general - is when you have this moment where you hear a song or whatever and you say, "Hey, I've felt that exact way as a human being," and there's no easy way to describe it.