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.

I'm the kind of person that, as a listener, will go the extra mile to interpret something that's fairly meaningless, or that might be meaningless.

Because as much as I love figuring out other people's puzzles, and love putting words together in ways that feel good to sing and sound good together and suit the melody, I think most of the best songs in the world are fairly clear about what they mean to say.

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!"

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.

I think there's been this long cycle of the big companies making a lot of money by underestimating people's intelligence and people are used to it now. So, they're so used to having their intelligence underestimated that, for most of them, it really isn't worth the bother of paying a little more attention to something that might hit them on a deeper level. But you can't really read people's minds.

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.