I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound. But I can't find myself in a situation where our band Swans is doing typical chord progressions - it just seems cliché to me. Even changing chords sounds like a cliché sometimes, though it happens occasionally in our music. But you find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.

The music takes you. It has to be alive. It's like you hammer something, and the way it happens to bleed leads you into new directions.

You find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn't stay the same. It morphs constantly.

I'm just as comfortable performing solo with just my acoustic guitar and vocal as I am with a band. The main thing for me is that the performance remain rooted in the words and voice, that there be no place to hide.

I have my own record company. I have to answer to God, basically. I'm not young, so I want to make the best possible work I can before I exit.

I'm pretty confident that people are going to come along for the ride. If they don't, tough.

I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound.