That really sums up the strange bluntness that a really prime German interview can have. They're really interested in your cultural velocity in this way that I don't think people in the United States even necessarily think about alternative-rock bands. So it's not like we're against regular rock. We're not like a battling army shaking our weapons against The Rolling Stones.

The main thing that we're doing is thinking we can control anything, which is the biggest false assumption we can make. I think we can figure out how to tread a lot more lightly on the environment, and we'll be a lot better off.

We want to be original. To express our most interesting stuff. But you don't see the word "original" come up very often to describe big bands. Our job isn't to pigeonhole ourselves or describe where we fit in. Our goal isn't to fit in. Our goal is to be free of all that stuff.

I think the biggest wrestling match-up I have is how to respond to the word "quirky." Or the alternate, "nerdy." Both are essentially benign to the reader, but if you're a writer just sort of involved in your creative process, they seem like very small motivations.

Have you heard Alanis Morisette trying to play the harmonica? She doesn't know how to play the harmonica. Well guess what, Alanis, I INVENTED the 'don't-know-how-to-play-harmonica-harmonica-solo.'

We're affable guys in They Might Be Giants. We're not gonna do the periscope-down thing, but it's a little bit mind-bending. The biggest struggle is trying to figure out a way to back up far enough in your answer that it can be read without the context of the question. Every declarative statement you see that comes out of an interview with somebody is actually in response to a question. So it's sort of like this very real interpersonal dance where one of the people involved is invisible.

There's so many simple things that can be done to change our carbon footprint, and to reduce our carbon footprint.