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.

I am definitely less and less interested in music made by people that exist today, people that are living. I just see them as part of the whole stupid process of the music business, desperate (even if they feign indifference) to get noticed, trying to "make it" in the stinking music business, to become "famous" etc, and it disgusts me.

It's good that people come to the shows because there's nothing fashionable about Swans. Never has been, really. We've never been part of a scene. So the people that come are really there for the music. Fortunately, there's a lot of young people and a burgeoning female contingent, which is good as well.

It wouldn't interest me to try to sound like Cop or something. It would be silly and soul-crushing.

Making those CDs, signing them, numbering them, packing them. It takes hundreds of hours, but it's worth it because I'm able to do the thing I love.

I really wanted to get to the animal core of rock music and eliminate anything that wasn't necessary.

The goal is ecstasy, but I don't want to make some sort of saccharine pop music. I want to make something that's completely uncompromising: the best possible music ever made.