My songs pretty much revolve in my brain most of the time - usually, whatevers coming next.

I realized that, to a large degree, I had kept my rational mind at bay my whole life. I just acted on intuition in terms of how I related to life. At some point, my rational mind started creeping in, and it would not shut up. I finally had to address it and confront it. I think most intelligent people, at a younger age than I have, begin to question some of the fundamental assumptions our society promotes. But me, I just rejected it without even considering it.

I went to Louisiana Tech, which is just down the road from where we lived. It was an easy college to get into.

When so many of our dreams had come true and yet I still saw that so many of my friends were in a lot of pain... I saw their pain from a different perspective and realized that I can't just sing my way out of all this suffering. I have to try to understand human nature and myself and the nature of suffering and a lot of these other issues on a deeper level.

I decided at 10 I wanted to be in a band; everyone else wanted to play football.

I love the idea of a record containing an entire universe; where the sounds span decades of recording from all over the world and all sorts of different sources.

I do feel like it's so important not to take that for granted - that opportunity to share your ideas with intelligent, beautiful people.