It's great to know that our old stuff still sounds good to our fans, just as it's wonderful to think that we've turned a few people on to jazz over the years.

What do you do with what you're given, and how do you transform it into something worthwhile?

When you get a groove going, time flies.

As jazz fans, it was amusing for us to play jazz harmonies on these big, ugly electric guitars.

Melodies can be good depending on the context. You can have a simple melody, and if the harmony behind it is interesting, it can make a very simple melody really different. You can also have a complex melody. The more complex it is, the harder it is to sing, and then sometimes it can sound contrived. You could write a melody that would be fine on a saxophone but if you give it to a singer, it can sound raunchy.

I think of Steely Dan as being of its time, and it may be inseparable from its time.

We don't think of ourselves as being perfectionists, really. To us it's more about desperately trying to have it sound more or less OK.