There are a few artists that I'm really into. I mean, I'm a big Nick Cave fan. And there's a band from Australia called Big Heavy Stuff that's one of my favorite bands ever.

It's sort of a fine line where you're dying to express it and then hoping no one really gets it that closely. But I'm pretty much over that. I'd really just like to be understood.

I'm an atrocious business man, because it's just not the way I think about things. And that's pretty much what all that Grammy/MTV kind of stuff is tied into.

One thing I know that's really cool - it seems to me that Blake Schwarzenbach [Jets to Brazil frontman; ex-Jawbreaker] is someone who's made music that's people continue to take really personally.

For most of the projects I've worked on, I've been entrusted with some degree of musical responsibility, even if it's just like coaching for vocals and stuff.

I'd been in a couple situations where I'd seen bands realize that they didn't have to get a good take in order to get something that sounded like a song. The musicians are there and they don't quite have it together, and then the engineer says, "Oh! That's okay, I'll just cut and paste the verse!"

Another cultural thing that's really creepy. It's not like in the '60s, where there were definitely great high points of creativity where people were trying to outdo each other to be noticed even.