I wasn't being critical of myself in the way I can normally be, and I was letting myself follow through with stuff. It was like a prolonged spontaneity.

For one, the nonverbal aspects of music are the most important to me. Then, whatever sort of emotion the music carries, intrinsically, dictates the images that unfold, lyrically. Topical writers usually have the topic before they begin writing the song, but, for me, it's the other way around.

I do love the marriage of words and music. I do love them in terms of little snapshots. But, I guess I understand my own internal world, so there's a well to dip into for me that's easier than getting an idea from reading the newspaper.

I feel like I'm adapting to society. I went feral a little bit. I found that when I would get back to the city, if there was any second-guessing about stuff, it would happen.

It's just like I get this identity crisis: my body doesn't want to write, my mind doesn't want to write. Nothing about me wants to write, but I force myself to sit there and try. Nothing happens.

If you produce yourself and you're working in a band, there's certain compromises everyone has to make, because it's a democracy and you have to cater to each other's feelings. When you have a producer, you have this objective ear that's not worrying about protecting anybody's feelings, so he's just making hard decisions based on what works and what doesn't, which was huge for us. I don't think we'd be able to make those decisions by ourselves.

It seems like journalism over here in UK, in general, is at a higher level: not overrun by all these teeny little blogs. There's more of a historical context for it or something. It seems like people review something or take a listen to something and they really do their homework. That's just what it seems like.