If I was talking about making a song special, I probably meant getting the lyrics and arrangement together, or getting some instrument that's going to tie the whole thing together. That can take months, or it can happen really fast.

There's no way to replicate a really great vocal sometimes.

I'm usually way more pleased with the stuff that just kinda happens by accident and is no way a pop song. But sometimes the easiest thing for me to write is pop songs.

Mostly, isolation allows me to go through a period where I really concentrate and get in a flow. Sometimes the whole process can be daunting, and when you're away from it, thinking about going back to it is especially daunting. If I go away for a week, I can be working on 10 songs at once, just jumping around to each one. I can get a month's worth of work done.

My song titles have different reasons for the mistakes. "Don't You Evah," that's just the way that I've always said it, and I just thought it was funnier. "Yr." in "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb", it's that punk-rock way of writing "your," like "Kill Yr. Idols." And "Rhthm And Soul" was just an actual typo that someone pointed out, and I just said, "Well, I guess that's the way it's gonna be."

I think there are lots of people that believe in rock 'n' roll. It's real easy. You just find some friends to play with and then you can feel it. I think that happens all the time. To be in a band and be playing in a room really loud, even if you never play a show, that feeling is really addictive and pure.

The idea that somebody out there is that eager to hear my music in advance can only be a good thing. But growing up, I always liked that system where "release day" was a big thing, and for bands I really liked, I'd know that date. It'd be on my calendar, and I'd go to the record store that day. Sitting down and listening to the record for the first time was a real event. I wish it was still that way, but that's not the way the world works any more.