I think one of the things about ageing is the jagged peaks become a little bit mellower...? Heheh. And I feel like I'm able to understand a little bit better where that sort of tack comes from.

People love drama, and if you aren't really interested in perpetuating that, it keeps you from exploding on a mainstream stage. I'm totally fine with that.

I've said this a lot lately, too: if, 20 or 30 years down the road, when everything's said and done, I was never able to achieve that level of zeitgeist again, then so be it. I know how rare it is for anybody to do that. But I also feel like, OK, we're getting on to 25 years of putting out records: that's also kind of rare air for anybody who makes music. And I think you just end up kind of grateful for every opportunity that comes along.

I don't hate what I love. I love what I love and I hate what I hate.

When I make music, it takes me two hours to get into the flow. To me it's like tapping into some kind of subconscious frequency: I just have to turn everything else off, open up part of myself, expose my fears and try to work through it in the music that I'm making.

To be honest, I didn't really get into making music to be an album artist.

I was asked to do TV ads for Macintosh. Nowadays, I think anybody would jump at that but, at the time, it didn't feel appropriate for what I was trying to stand for.