I can tell really early on in a painting if I'm going to toss it or not.

Just because something might not have a deep philosophical meaning doesn't mean it's not important or relevant.

I know texture is really important, but I think texture and stuff precedes songwriting a lot of the time these days.

If you look at the way people behave at shows, icons are now musicians; they are the people that we worship.

When an artist, or whomever, moves from their scene to the bigger pond, it starts getting crazy, because all of a sudden people don't respect you, and you have to start being a lot more aggressive than you would normally be.

One thing with Montreal is it's so cold and everyone's so poor and beer's so cheap: if you go to a show you have to brave the weather to get there. So you show up and everyone's soaking wet - there's a sense of 'I trekked through three feet of snow to get here!' I think there's a kind of camaraderie that arises out of that, that's important to me as well.

If you tell someone you're doing something innovative, they'll think you're doing something innovative.