You hit a guitar, you hit a note, you hit a drum, you hit an organ. Meat and potatoes. Simplicity. Not getting too caught up in little tweezers of perfection.

I don't want to take photographs that I won't recognize as myself, and myself isn't necessarily just blankly staring at the lens.

Gatekeeper was sort of my first attempt to put a little bit of a frame and boundaries around songwriting, and try to figure out a way to approach it that had a sort of end result in mind. I havent written many like that.

And of course, pop music is all about memorability and simplicity and positive messages and a little dash of joy.

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

For me, the best part is people who watch the movie and tell me it inspired them to collaborate with their friend who's a photographer or filmmaker.

Musically, I didn't relate to Berlin. There seemed to be a lot of machine music made there - I don't think I saw a stringed instrument in two years.