The sexuality of children - there's a lot friction there. That tension interests me a lot.

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.

I'm more interested in pulling out strands of joy from both myself and the audience. I'm not saying the music or songs are "light," just that when they're performed with the correct commitment it's a source of real pleasure, for me anyway.

I don't throw my body down on the stage at all anymore because I'm sure I'd snap like a twig.

I went to art school and never thought I'd be a musician, but then punk rock came along in the late 70s and kind of ruined my life. So I quit art school to get involved in music and I've been doing it ever since.

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.

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