I was at a New Year's Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, 'I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,' and I actually meant it.

When you're recording to analog tape, it captures performance and you can't necessarily manipulate that in different ways. It is what it is.

You look up to your heroes and you shouldn't be intimidated by them; you should be inspired by them.

The late '60s and the '70s, a lot of this really beautiful equipment was being made and installed into studios around the world and the Neve boards were considered like the Cadillacs of recording consoles. They're these really big, behemoth-looking recording desks; they kind of look like they're from the Enterprise in Star Trek or something like that. They're like a grayish color, sort of like an old Army tank with lots of knobs, and to any studio geek or gear enthusiast it's like the coolest toy in the world.

How come drummers leave their drumsticks on the dashboard of their car? So they can park in the handicapped spaces.

The whole slacker generation totally didn't apply to us musically.

I mean, I never liked being told what to do. It's one of the reasons I dropped out of school.