There are only two stories: either you go forward or you die.

I did a lot of music criticism. I don't think much of it was any good. I think I wanted to show off a lot when I was younger. Now I just want people to enjoy the story. If it were possible to publish anonymously, that would be awesome.

My family, before the divorce, moved several times, and after that we moved a whole bunch more times, and so I don't have an anchor to a single place. Probably as a result of that, I'm a little more attenuated to when people do feel close identification to place, whether they say it out aloud or not. I think that there's a sort of local patriotism that is deeper than national patriotism.

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.

I always worry that I'm a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don't have exhaustive knowledge of much.

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

A bands first albums usually not great. When you made the first album, you had a day job and you were still trying to be serious about it.