There's part of me that feels a privilege not to do music, but to do what everybody should be allowed to do, which is to do what you're driven to do.

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

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 play drums, and I'd recommend it to anyone, except maybe your neighbors. It's great exercise - physical, mental, emotional, and social. It takes deep concentration but also activates concentration. If you're doing it right, it's always just a little harder than what you can actually pull off.

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.

I love love. Growing up, I always thought it was a state, and I'd wait for it to appear. Now I think it's an activity, a skill, something you strive to create. A constant conversation between emotion and imagination and flesh.

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.