[Juan Wauters] got the tips for Queens because he grew up there.So him and my roommate, Matt Volz, they hooked me up, New York Style.

We went on tour with Phoenix. I don't really know anything about Phoenix I'd heard a couple songs. And I thought, I don't really know if I want to go on this, it's kind of weird, kind of a pain in the ass for us. But everyone was like YOU HAVE TO DO IT, it's going to be so good for your career. And I mean I don't know if it was good for our career but the guys in the band were super huge sweethearts.

I was having a good time before, but you grow up after a couple years and realize, "I can't get drunk like this every night." Things change.

I'm just being myself. I'm not a very complex guy; I'm not a very studious, crazy intellectual guy. I'm just a guy.

Patience is important, and also, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. But if you do, do. That's a general rule in how I live my life.

I mean, Lady Gaga is trying to be a freak or whatever but that quality of being very meaningly and heartfelt, but also having a sense of humor about it, bands don't do that anymore. Lady Gaga's songs are cheesy. The Beatles weren't cheesy. That's the hardest thing with music: to not be cheesy, but also be meaningful. That's the goal, I think.

I had a band called the Sound Of Love and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape and that was that.