Our [former] governor [Pat McCrory] was supposed to be a moderate, but he found himself beholden to people who have much more draconian ideas. I think he assumed this stuff flew under the radar.

I still get really excited looking at stuff that I've seen every day for 20 years.

Men tend to dominate whatever public discourse they participate in, and another big part of feminism is to let women have their say. Men's voices can be welcome at the table, but there is a time and a place, and maybe it's now, for men to make a little less noise, make their needs less known, and listen to the needs of others.

I think taking too long to work on a record you sort of lose some of the feeling, so I write as fast as I can; it's just this manic phase where I'm by myself and or on tour and I write and I write. And I send them to the guys, and we start planning our studio ventures.

There are stylists I really love. I'm a huge Joan Didion fan - if I wrote something that she might like, then I'd feel very proud. I want the action to move as quickly as it does in A Book of Common Prayer, where one thing bonks right into another very quickly.

As an artist, you always have to be growing. You don't just want to do what you already know people like.

This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen.