I've been doing four-track songs by myself since I was like a teenager, where I'd sing in a way that I ... I just didn't think other people would like it, so I didn't play it for them but eventually I got over that, which I'm happy that I did, because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music that you don't really like as much as another kind.

My girlfriend at the time convinced me to send these songs to Cavity Search. When they wanted to put out my record I was totally shocked.

Theres a bunch of Elvis Costello records that made all the difference between feeling like a total freak and feeling like ... only a freak. A freak among other freaks

I went walking around the city some more, people watching with a cold, blank stare. And I saw your face in everyone, I swear.

Nothing's gonna drag me down to a death that's not worth cheating.

It's a lot easier to tell the truth usually.

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it -- there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter.