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.

Journalists say my music is "blue wave," or "dreamy," or "jangly-slacker jewel," and none of it really makes sense to me.

Neil Young is the prime example, the grand goal, if you will. He's still shredding, and he never lost his credibility.

I take making music seriously, but you have to have a sense of humor about yourself. I invite people into my life. That's how I do it.

I do get labeled as a guitar band, but the only reason is that's the instrument I know how to play. The guitar is serving the song I'm writing. But I'm learning how to play keyboard better now so that'll start serving the song as well; it'll be another flavor. I'm not going to switch it up with big, fat drum machine beats and real swoopy synths, but yeah...

I really love a lot of Japanese music, like Ryuichi Sakamoto and this guy I got really into, Tatsuro Yamashita. When I was a little younger, I thought synthesizers meant Kraftwerk, cold, robotic, weird, Autobahn. But these guys are having a lot of fun on these things. Sometimes. Sometimes it's very somber. They could go either way.

My music is kind of laid back, it doesn't have super crispy, shiny production, and I'm not singing my heart out or whatever. But that whole idea of blogs declaring: "this is the new denomination for this sound" is ridiculous to me.