I'd much rather speak up and stand behind something I believe in than worry about pissing off a couple hundred people. And if they're more pissed off than if I never said anything, well, sorry but not sorry.

People digest and process music differently, and I'm sure that was the case even when I was a kid.

Every album has a thing where it's like, "How are we going to marry our four ideas and personalities?" The older we get, the more people become comfortable with their strengths and weaknesses. Being in a band with such a long history can be frustrating and slow, but ultimately it's so much more rewarding.

I do enjoy talking about how everything's changed and I'm fascinated by it, and I can spend my time worrying, like, "Are we going to appeal to teens?" But then, if I were to try to make a record for teens, I'd be doing exactly what I said I didn't want to do. That'd be posturing. And I'm watching other people trying to do that, and they all look stupid. But for some of them, it's working, so cash in.

It seems to be really trendy to get excited about a random-ass radio song. Which, I like radio songs, don't get me wrong. But I'm just confused at which ones seem to be heralded as some sort of genius-like concoction. It doesn't totally make sense to me.

There's a particular trend towards the empty pop song right now. Where people are like, "This. Is. Brilliant. She's singing about a crush on somebody. Wowww." You know what I mean? There's a weird, I don't know... It's called "poptimism."

It's really hard to maintain a band as a democracy. Again, I think there's been a shift. There's a lot of emphasis put on style and a singular personality, as opposed to a more anonymous group of people playing music. It's more about can I dress this person up? Are they going to look pretty? I feel like the cult of personality is back, for sure.