The group-effort sound in recording of Sea Lion is like, you really hear all the people in the room and hear them interlocking. Theres a real freight-train energy of all these people at the same time playing.

I know I'm sane I don't give a care for the crown or the shield I will not protect you or happily yield To the one who makes me come undone

Songwriting is a really fortunate skill to have to frame living and to find new ways to observe things you're going through.

Be alone even when there's a million people around, because tomorrow it will be a different million people.

I'm in the countryside outside of Paris, in a beautiful old manor house. The studio is in the basement, but we decided to set everything up in the old parlor and dining-room area so we can look at each other and (at) the sunshine coming through the stained-glass windows. It's pretty idyllic, and I think it's spoiling me. I'll have to go back to regular life after this.

I just went to Europe, spent a year traveling, and then I came home with a finished album and said, "Hey everyone I'm back!" I gave everyone their lighters from Luxembourg, gave them the postcards from Italy and Rome, then said, "Hey look, I made a record, too" and played it for them. The general reaction was shock, because it was so different from what they've known me to do.

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.