There are lot of bands that have too many songs, I think.

To me, Modest Mouse is one of the best bands ever. I actually wasn't surprised that they made it big. It's always weird to see it happen, and it happens so fast, all of a sudden songs are in the background on TV.

For me, I'm more of a songwriter than a guitar player or singer. And not having things to work on was really kind of nice.

People who were really good at playing or singing seemed boring to me.

My whole view of music completely flipped over on its head. I grew up listening to punk rock, SST. I liked people that were making music that weren't necessarily very good at their instruments, it was more about the ideas they had than how well they could play and sing.

If you know that someone is going to hear what you're doing, you're always going to be self-conscious about it. In a way that's good; it spurs you on.

When I was growing up, I really liked punk rock. I liked the sort of people that played really powerful music that was pretty unassuming otherwise - people who didn't dress weird or do much theatrics.