I have this problem where I get incredibly, miserably nervous every single show. This is part of why touring is so exhausting for me. I have not gotten to a place where it's like, "All right, here's another." It just doesn't feel workaday, at all, yet. It's kind of killing me, being so nervous so many hours of the day. After the show - we try to end on an anthemic note, and I try and let that be decisive, and I will often come back out for an encore a cappella, and that's where I try and take leave from the feelings of the stage. Trying, after I do that, to return to my life.

I have this problem where I get incredibly, miserably nervous every single show. This is part of why touring is so exhausting for me. I have not gotten to a place where it's like, "All right, here's another." It just doesn't feel workaday, at all, yet. It's kind of killing me, being so nervous so many hours of the day. After the show - we try to end on an anthemic note, and I try and let that be decisive, and I will often come back out for an encore a cappella, and that's where I try and take leave from the feelings of the stage. Trying, after I do that, to return to my life.

George Saunders is outside of Chicago too. I've met him a few times, actually. I really like him a lot. He's a really sweet guy. He's a big fan of my music now, too. I spent an enormous amount of time reading his work.

I've come to realize that most of my intellectual postures and a lot of my intellectualism is super defensive and really symptomatic of basic fears. My one thing with the record is that I wanted to make something alien that wasn't alienating. And I think that the last thing I want is to dedicate my life to something which renders me further and further from being at home in my life - progressively more alienated and separate from myself.

Every new generation of smartphone just has a different-shaped button. It's embarrassing.

I'm cool with being the sad guy, but I don't want to be the guy who nobody wants around because he's so miserable.

"Everything must change, everything must stay the same." Those are good words to have circling around in my head. I just wish that I was able to deal with them, not by singing, but by helping myself. But singing helps, too.