In a certain respect, in a movie, you inevitably have a lot of people doing a lot of different jobs because that's the only practical way to get it done. When you make a record, you can still be an auteur, because you can make a whole record without anyone's help if you want.

The more I make stuff, the more I become aware of when I feel like I'm making bullshit or feel like I'm making something I can stand behind.

I want the ethic of being independent and open-minded, having a lot of integrity, intellectually, to be part of anything I do.

I've always felt that singing is half technical, half taxing. You've got words, a melody, and an instrument, and you have to do justice to the words. You're just a medium for people to feel the song.

The reason companies work is because you're able to get a lot of people doing the work; it's not because of this visionary. Steve Jobs didn't make Apple; it was a bunch of people. The building of the right team is an art in and of its own right.

To leverage those things that are common to everybody, and to present them in a way that's sort of naked, is more courageous in art than constantly trying to be evasively too cool.

I want to have freedom of thought and expression - not get beaten down into some corporate existence, where there's so much risk of embracing the truth that you feel like you can't do it.