I would feel pretty embarrassed if I was doing what I do and I wasn't at least attempting the eloquent translation of the human experience in some way.

You've gotta be an outsider a little bit to shake yourself loose from the mill, the "machine." In order to even cut the space in your life to pursue what most people literally cannot afford a moment to pursue. So, yeah. I think that not only is that the role of the artist, but it might be a requirement.

I hope that people take away hope, maybe not in an obvious sense, but in the form of hearing somebody who's genuinely fighting to stay above water. And in that fight, there's hope. In that fight, maybe there's positivity.

Maybe my great struggle, and it's probably not anything different from too many other people, but it certainly is what drives the music, is a hugely internal one.

I do these records. All of these ideas that I have, that I put out there, that inspire me to write, are a purging in a lot of ways. I have to expel them in order for myself to walk around and actually smile and be a regular, or a living, person.

No doubt, there are times when I'm like "We have all gotten really used to saying whatever the f - k we want to say," and it's something that I really take seriously, whatever that may be.

I'm not really one of these people who's been known for particularly hopeful sentiments.