It's impossible to escape from religion anywhere you are in the States.

I've always thought, "I could probably write one of these country songs and send them to these places and make up this fake country band. Wouldn't it be awesome to have a completely parallel career and have nobody know about it?" I think I could get away with it. I'd be the guy from Oklahoma with country cred.

I'm 24, and a lot of people my age grew up listening to bands that were big and making it from around here. I was going to Flaming Lips and Chainsaw Kittens concerts when I was 12, and getting my mind blown at a young age... and maybe for people in bands, there's irreparable damage from those kind of things, and it turns out weirder bands.

People should quit their jobs, move to Oklahoma, move in with 34 people, pay $100 a month in rent and start a band or start painting. That way you'll feel like you have a purpose if you lose your mind, and you'll have some fun on the way.

It's hard to convince people when you haven't done anything that the things you're working on are worthy of spending their time and money on: like, "Oh man, I write really great songs, I promise!"

We're not clever enough to picture something and say, "Our music is going to be Jackson Pollock meets Oprah Winfrey" and then go about achieving that. I was in a band called Olive Loaf - it was the first thing I ever did when I first started playing the guitar when I was 12, and it was sort of like Ween, although I didn't know Ween even existed at the time.

I have a vision in my hand that the labels have these vaults, like Scrooge McDuck, except instead of gold coins they have these demo CDs, and sometimes they just go in there and take a swim.