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

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.

No one appreciates a professional anymore. Everyone's a mystic. Which is why I take drunk Jim over acid Jim - the argument all roads eventually lead to.

I actually do see rock and roll as pop music. I think the distinction I was making was that I was going out of my way to have a very consistent approach to production, where nothing kind of punctures the reality - or, I guess, the fake reality - of the album and what you're listening to from beginning to end.

I think the more removed I feel, the more I warm up to the role of singer.

When I'm on stage I don't say anything. The last thing I want to do is share my thoughts. I don't know if that's mysterious - maybe it's just old fashioned.

It never really interested me in the past but, for the first time, I wanted to make a pop record. I thought a good way of doing it would be to make songs that didn't really make sense to me as songs; songs that I couldn't just sit down and play in front of someone and then get them to play over it.