I've been in bands since I was about fifteen, so there are probably quite a lot of terrible teenage songs kicking about somewhere. I'm not sure what it was about to be honest, I think it was probably just something along the lines of teen angst.

I think I have a vested interest in thinking that the lyrics are important, but I think for us it's important that we all write things that mean something to us, and I think we're not really in the business of writing la-la-love-you chart pop songs. It needs to have a personal pulling in the gut for me, to want to write anything about it.

I'd rather work with a grassroots organization than in politics. I'm not sure I'd be the best politician because I don't think I'm good about tactfully tiptoeing around questions in the right way.

It was always very important for us that we presented ourselves as a band, because it's a three-part writing process and it's a three-part decision making process, it's not two producer guys and a girl that sings the songs. It's startling how many people make that assumption.

I think in reading a few sentences of text you can just tell the tone, and that's something I love in prose writers.

I learned drumming as a second instrument because I didn't want to sing. Sometimes I would quite like to be left in the back, in the darkness by myself.

Writing with other people is the only way I ever really work. In some ways it's great because it's helpful to someone pull you out of the loop.