Every American college student goes to college with a hard drive. They take their laptop. There's not a CD player in sight.

As I kid, I was always jealous of the music that my favorite bands had written - but not really of how they played. So I'd daydream about having written songs, and this way above being able to perform them.

I don't mind when people are telling me about their 1971 Firebird, but it's the same thing as people telling me about their car or something. It's fine if you have an interest. By talking with me, though, you could be interviewing a novelist about guitars. It's the same thing, except I don't write that well either.

I think It's a bit of a disappointment that a lot of people's Golden Age of music is still the '60s.

I think I'll always feel a little in awe whenever I see someone in their 20s or 30s carrying a cello or violin case - because I know, if they're doing it professionally, how many years of practice have gone into being able to make music with them. And the sounds they can make just hit me very hard, and feel full of limitless complexity.

I'm happy to write 10 times too much music.

I remember when I was in my late teens just getting rid of lots of records, realizing I only ever listened to them when I was reading, or watching TV, or doing something else.