There were a lot of people doing new and interesting things with rock. But I wanted to take it farther than that. My real influence was punk. I must have listened to the first Patti Smith album 300 times.

It's crucial that people are on the right measure at the right time.

Music is about imagination. It's about thought. It's about creating something from nothing.

I'm never happy with anything.

Whatever works for the piece I'm thinking about is the way I write.

It scares me that people are going to stop writing music. I don't mean music that has to be physically written down, but they'll stop using their brain which is without a doubt the most powerful tool that you could have in any art.

I think of myself of a primitivist. I have never had any of these electronic instruments and I have never had the slightest interest in using them. I use the computer as a tool, simply because it makes composing a lot faster. But I don't go on stage with a computer and make a lot of goofy sounds.