I like performing, but I usually get really sick when I'm on tour, and it's just hard.

As a producer, I'm trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality - not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.

The groove can go for like three days - once I'm in it it will just keep going until I'm totally exhausted. But that's how I like to work, I like to be away from everyone and just get in the zone, and stay there for as long as I can keep it there.

I have a lot of Japanese friends: I grew up in Vancouver, and there's this huge Japanese population over there.

I definitely see the voice as an instrument: It makes great drums, great synth pads, great everything. Vocals can be so many things, like, "Hey, I'm Michael Jackson, and this is my iconic voice," or a choir of people sounding like Mozart's Requiem. Mariah Carey is my favorite singer because her voice sounds utterly groundless. It's not even a human voice; it almost sounds mechanical.

Fashion can be a really powerful tool, but it's also a place where you can be totally humiliated and have your power taken from you.

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.