Music is so clearly a commodity now. At one point, maybe 20 years ago, there were still some rumblings about keeping the really sacred American popular music out of the hands of corporate advertisers. And those walls have come down, but now I think the logical reaction to that is that you just start making your own music.

Every girl wants songs written about her. Even the most hardened tattoo-covered punk rock girl would love a nice ballad written for her.

My dream right now is - and I don't know how to do it, and I don't know if it will work exactly - but just this sort of vague aspiration to start some kind of website where people send in their stories or poems, and me or perhaps some other people turn that into music. And then by the end of the year we make a record and actually put it out. Like a band, but the band is actually a combination of the musician and the fan. I think that's a very 21st-century way of doing it.

I think it happens to a lot of people who make music just on a computer by themselves, you don't see the bigger picture. You don't see the forest for the trees. You're looking at every tree so closely, and every tree looks so cool. But you're making a forest, man, you're not making a tree.

The beauty in the death that awaits us, I find a timeless beauty in that.

A big part of making a good record is really getting a vibe, and a vibe is a mysterious thing. The vibe kind of exists in the air in the room. It's not just all the stuff you put on there, and the specific notes and arrangements and all that. That's like half of it. The other half is just the air, and just the spirit.

I'm always trying to make the music sexier with every album, every tour. I just try to inch my way toward just a little sexier. I know it's tough for me.