Keeping the pen out of your hand as much as possible is the best way to write a song, in my estimation. But the pen must come in to tighten it up.

I grew up wearing black arm-bands when the hunger strikers died. I went on those marches. I grew up basically a Provo, though I never obviously got into any activities. I was writing 'IRA, Brits out' on walls all over where I grew up, but that was a false sense of Irishness.

Keeping the pen out of your hand as much as possible is the best way to write a song, in my estimation. But the pen must come in to tighten it up.

I absolutely adore the alchemy of a bit of an idea.

There's this unspoken thing that you have to wear a tux and some kind of nice dress. There are all these ethical rules, but I'm sure if you came to the Oscars in ripped jeans and a t-shirt they wouldn't throw you out. You would just look like a fool.

I love the idea of leaving some of the original abstract thought in, because the problem is that when you pick up a pen you become a snob, your own worse critic. You edit yourself in a way that is non-creative.

My dad was quiet, angry, shut down. So my thing is: I express everything that's there. I want to get it all out.