I'll force myself to sit down and read a couple of chapters of a great book or I'll force myself to sit and listen to some amazing music or I'll go see a play. I find that watching or experiencing other forms of art gets my brain in action. It makes me feel connected to the creative energies and then that tends to get things going.

What frustrated us about the song [Robots] was not that it existed - we owe a lot to that song and have had a ton of fun playing it. The problem was that it was a "given".It was like everyone was waiting for it to happen, and then it better be as crazy as the time they saw it before. Started to feel like dancing monkeys.

I miss that moment when you're about to go through the tube turn-style but you put your ticket in the wrong way and then as you're trying to figure out how exactly to get in the damn station you hear a collective sigh of 40 people behind you pissed that you're slowing down the herd.

It doesn't matter if you're talking to a communist or a fascist if you say, do you want a good future for your kids? Well they're all going to say yes. Well do you think that money should be spent efficiently? Yes. Al of these things, everyone agrees on them but the way that we discuss them and the language that we use we hold different definitions for.

The most rewarding possible thing that a songwriter or an artist of any kind can experience is to hear firsthand from the mouth of somebody else that they don't know the weight or gravity or intensity that something they've made has brought out in somebody else's life. It's simultaneously flattering and humbling. It makes me so thankful that I've been so lucky to be able to do this work.

And sometimes you just have to trust that there will be more, sometimes you go through dry spells and you have to assure yourself "no no, it's gonna be fine. There's gonna be more songs, it's all good.

I was an English major in university and that got me into novels, but I read a lot of books as a kid.