It's amazing to think that there must be this river of ideas constantly rushing inside of a person, and once you've somehow found a path into it, then it's just there, whether you will it to be or not.

It's amazing to think that there must be this river of ideas constantly rushing inside of a person, and once you've somehow found a path into it, then it's just there, whether you will it to be or not.

When it comes down to intuition, when it comes down to gut feelings about whether a song is right, you can get distracted with words, rationalization. There's nothing wrong with music school, but part of music school has to be the ability to forget all of it, too.

I'm not unswayed by the opinions of others. I actually really value that, the idea that you can feel things the way somebody else might feel them is a really big part of doing music for me.

What most people call "chaos" is actually incredibly predictable and maddeningly boring - greed, close-mindedness, warring over power.

Usually if someone starts making universal claims, I tune right on out.

In American commercials in the past year or two, I don't know, the singers all sound like they're whining and the music's all melancholy. It's sort of like, I hear these commercials and it makes me feel sad, you know? Like - for instance, my barley tea is gone. Now, there's music out there that encourages you, when your barley tea has run out, to just sort of sit there and be like "My tea ran out. Oh, man." And just be slouching. So we wanted to make music that when your tea runs out, instead you're like, "I'm gonna go get some more tea!" You know? It just gives you the energy.