I was staying at my friend's house and he told me about the drug Prednisone. It took me 14 years to discover it. And there are a lot of times that would have helped me out over the years. I can't believe I'd never even heard of it, though.

Everyone in Seattle is a total pussy when it comes to snow. The whole city shut down, the place looked like an apocalyptic movie.

I write songs now I look at my strengths and I start there. In The Walkmen, we'd start with the live stuff.

When I got to L.A. I woke up and I was losing my voice because of the dry air. It was like, "Oh my god, this is going to be Joe's Pub all over again."

The great thing is that when you hire string players you always get really great players. I don't know why that is.

I used to put the vocals on top and piece it together. Now I start with the vocals and the string parts I write; the drums are kind of an afterthought. And who knows, maybe that will get boring, but right now that's the most interesting way for me.

The first ones I played were in New York at Joe's Pub; I played four shows, but I did something like 30 interviews and a couple radio shows in the mornings and completely blew out my voice. It kind of sucked.