The equipment you've got really dictates what you're going to do. When I started touring, there were no monitors, so I had to take the sound from the hall, and of course it was on a delay, so I would sing, and then I would hear it back, but later. It was very weird.

I come from a very left wing Socialist family, anti-war and anti-empire.

I've simplified much more in my writing. I say what I've got to say, not in metaphor.

France has been very good for me. It has given me a very worldly-cool attitude.

I have always been attracted to the bleaker aspects of life. I love drama.

I think it's a great shame that America stopped being a republic and became an empire.

I do have a strong sense of God. It's impossible to explain what I mean when I say that, of course.