They didn't teach Nietzsche in the philosophy department at Harvard; philosophy there was strictly analytical stuff and the poetic ramblings of Nietzsche did not belong. And see - you are teaching it in a literature class - so they must have been right.

It's hard to imagine the whole punk movement without The Velvet Underground. I toured with them when they did their reunion tour, and no one sounds like that; they are a very unique-sounding band. They have a lot of noise, they have a viola, they have a drummer that's standing up, certainly they have influenced my guitar playing, but hopefully after 12 records you start to sound like yourself.

I am interested in politics but have stayed away from writing overtly political songs, or message songs, because I find it difficult to discuss politics intelligently in a 4-minute song. But I am finding there are ways to get bits and pieces of political thought across without preaching that the people have the power or we shall not be moved. Of course these sentiments have their place too - I'm not knocking Phil Ochs - but that's a different kind of music, songs to play at rallies, not to achieve a state of bliss.

I don't pretend to understand him, but I can enjoy him as a poet and comedian. I liked the idea of the eternal return. Sometimes I think that being on tour year after year is an eternal return; you play a certain club in Copenhagen and then ten years later you are back again, traveling the same roads year after year.

Writing songs does not get any easier, and that might be because I am harder on myself than I was twenty years ago. Hopefully, as we grow older and change, there are fresh topics, new perspectives, or at least there should be.

Don't be a rock star. I've seen people around me have their lives destroyed by drugs. It just depends on what kind of person you are. Like, some people have a "go" button and a "stop" button, and some people just have the "go" button, meaning that they take drugs and just take more, and more, and more. It could be 6 in the morning and they'll say, "Okay, I have to get more now." I'm not that kind of person.

I guess I could be singing about Superman, or about Zarathustra coming down from the mountain, but in my mind I was singing about Julian Assange. I wish I could say that Nietzsche inspired my lyrics but all I can honestly say is I was inspired by the graphic design of these '70s paperback covers for Beyond Good & Evil and The Birth of Tragedy and The Gay Science.