I knew what real instruments I wanted and, in some cases, who I wanted to play them. I had started listening to a lot of ambient music and jazz and I wanted to incorporate stuff like that, too.

Big, evocative words get thrown around, and people can sing along to passionately as if the lyrics just materialized out of the ether, largely because they don't ever seem to coalesce into a writerly voice.

I've never had any kind of work ethic. I've never sat down with the intention of writing a song.

Kaputt was just a record that did really well for us, and therefore our record label and our booking agent said that we should go out and take our message to the world.

Once you feel like you can safely quit a melody, you are free to explore more important things.

I certainly didn't predict people who spent years actively disliking the band to all of a sudden like the band. That's pretty funny to me, and it makes playing live kind of interesting, 'cos we're doing lots of things that don't really have a lot to do with that record, and even presenting the songs off that record in a way that's a little more muscular and without as much of the sheen, which is what I think part of what people really liked [about Kaputt].

Of course, no lyrics are ever unintentional, but I think bands like Wolf Parade and the Arcade Fire have a tendency to touch on big themes without really following through on them or tying them in to a particular logic.