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.

You gotta lean towards the things that make you like yourself. Forget everything else.

It is the melody and the rhythm that are by far the most important and then words and imagery and stuff, story bits will start to stick to a melody and that is the way I write.

It takes us a long time to write a song that we all really like, so it makes sense that it would take a while for the listener to get there, too.

I don't want somebody telling my daughter who she can marry, or what she can do with her body. That's what was at stake.

Once you do have a child you want to talk about every detail of it. And it is really boring to all your friends and it should be.

Trying to make it and get people to respect your band, being a cool band-all of that stuff-I think we've arrived at a place where we have kids and everything is in perspective and it doesn't matter.