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.

I'm a terrible drummer. I can tune 'em pretty good, but I'm a pretty bad drummer.

I think politics and personal psychology and interrelationships - these things are interrelated to me and overlap.

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!"

The fact of picking up an instrument and writing a song and expressing yourself publicly has a powerful political dimension.

I always feel like the less I think of stage presence, the better, because then I have to face the fact that I have really complicated guitar parts, I'm singing almost all the time, and I have like six pedals I've got to keep on top of

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.