I do have a romantic interest in outlasting everybody else. There's a sort of sad machismo to singer-songwriters, I think.

I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back here telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.

It's hard always to say what it is one likes about a place, for me. I feel it.

I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun.

It's a cliché to state that one should think like a child, but it's clear that kids know something that the world tries to make you unlearn later in life.

I start writing, pull whatever images happen to occur to me and make up a story, instead of starting with details that are real and I know of and going from there.

The studio's a collaborative environment. I just try to let people bring their own ideas to the songs and see what happens.