I'm sort of a cavedweller: I miss my house, my yard, my kitchen, my wife. The trees. When I get home, I like to get down into my office neighborhood as soon as I can.

When all my friends insisted that they were feeling jaded, it struck me as an affected pose. To me, everything is always new.

What I like is horror movies, including '80s slasher movies that politically I have all kinds of problems with. Which is an interesting balance, because I have this leftist puritan strain that, well, if you like something that goes against your politics, maybe you should train yourself not to like it. But I know that I like horror movies and that's what I watch when I get a moment.

Conservative forces in the South have a lot of power - almost dynastic - dating back many years.

I'm not really a goal-oriented guy. I started doing the Mountain Goats just for the sheer hell of it.

There's this idea that there was a point in our childhood when we were in some way better than we are now and we should try to hang on to that.

The process of touring is always so weird to me. Once you've made the album, that's over, you move along.