In my mind I still qualify as punk, though I know four out of five punks would disagree.

I try to write lyrics that will be able to function on their own if they get separated from the music. But I wouldn't want to take anything away from poets, who work without the frames songwriters get from melody, and I think lyrics should be considered as their own thing.

I've always viewed my career with some suspicion, like I don't want to count on it to be the only thing I do. Partly that has to do with feeling like an imposter, like we all do sometimes, and partly I like doing other things, and being a full-time artist takes a focus I recognise I don't have.

I still think of myself as punk, because the way I became empowered to play music is entirely due to punk bands.

No one else writes like Gord Downie, so it's difficult to compare him. He can work in the abstract and still somehow be really specific. He lets parts of his consciousness in that most writers aren't able to do, myself included. I don't feel like I have that access to the surreal and the somehow beautifully meaningful non-sequitur - that fits perfectly. I can never figure that out, how he does that.

There are definitely parts of me in most of the protagonists I write, but I find a bit of distance can be useful, so I often find myself better able to write from a point of view that isn't exactly my own.

A more detailed world is a more complicated and complex one, and therefore a more empathetic one. I feel Gord's Downie lyrics are exceptionally empathetic, or that's what they accomplish. The fact that they can cross all those cultural cliques and boundaries really amplifies that, to me.