There are records that you just sink into. They coincide with what you’re going through and become an ally. If our records do that for people, that’s the greatest compliment I could ever receive. That’s one of the reasons making music is so important to me, because there’s a very strange emotional reach. For me—more than books or movies or other things—music is like a mainline to your heart.

I usually always think of characters and sometimes the characters are a little bit invented, so it's nice to give these invented, blurry, personas an actually name. It makes me get closer to them or something like that. But they're not all real, they're weird amalgamations of reality.

I focus on the words and then I have fun putting together the music after.

Maybe because I have spent too much of my life in rock clubs. I don't really go to parties anymore either. I'll usually be in the bus by 11:30 after a show.

I actually don't go to shows anymore. Rock concerts have lost their appeal for me.

I can only write songs when somebody gives me some water to swim in. Otherwise, I'm a fish on the beach.

Somehow, you realize you can kind of do anything in music. You don't have to be good at a certain thing; you can just do whatever you want.