I wrote short stories when I was a teenager, but they weren't any good and I kinda knew it.

If my songs are being listened to between any other songs, that is awesome, and I'm glad people are getting something out of them. We go to countries like Germany, where I can't imagine that all of my fans are engaging with the lyrics first and foremost. I think they're catching a vibe, a feeling. 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 and telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.

I really love Durham more than any place I've ever been; some small towns can be really provincial and strangling, but Durham is the best city in the world.

If you're standing in the middle of a ring and you're playing the villain, and everyone is booing and throwing things at you, that's real.

There's no such thing as mental illness. We're all mentally ill and we're all haunted by something, and some people manage to find a way to ride it out so that they don't wind up needing extra help. So I think that "mental illness," as a term, is garbage. Everybody is in various states of needing to transcend something.

What's scary is the unknown, the stuff you can't put your finger on.

People want you to play the songs they know. I try not to reflect too much, and I don't really like to focus too much on myself.