Music is pretty intimate stuff and I can only work with very few people: Gonzalez being one, Mocky being another and, on a completely different level, Broken Social Scene. With Broken Social Scene its not one-on-one, its a one-on-12. Its very healthy, very comfortable, like a big pot luck supper among old friends.

Because there's just so much in a day now, I keep writing in much more abstract terms, like I don't try to write about what happened anymore. It would be impossible.

I find it pretty fascinating how humans keep gravitating towards these giant centers. I went to this walled medieval village in France this year, and it was truly the most crazy, beautiful, bizarre place I've ever been.

No matter who weaves in and out of your life, regardless of the quality of those deep friendships and familyships, I'm the only common denominator at this point who's been with me the whole time. And there's this sense of trying to make sense of that ultimate solitude. It's not a negative or even a positive. It's just a fact.

I think that's more a reflection of the fact I've never been a student of any particular school of writing, or even listening.

I wrote the album [Metals] in the fall. In about four months, I went from zero to finished. It usually takes forever.

Everything becomes closer once you realize that the world is only as far away as a nap and a meal.