When I was fifteen years old, the only distinction in music my friends and I made was [that] there's music made by people with short hair and music made by people with long hair.

If a musician is making a mediocre, self-indulgent body of work, they have to know that, for the most part, people aren't going to be interested.

My interest in gospel music and liturgical art and Biblically-inspired literature has nothing to do with organised religion and everything to do with human beings trying to figure out their place on this planet.

I remind myself that the universe is 15 billion years old, and I'm only 46 years old, so my perspective is sort of limited and fear-based and skewed. So I sort of turn things over to whatever you want to call it - whether it's God, or the universe or the spirit of the universe - and I just sort of turn things over to God and hope that this spirit that has been around for 15 billion years will have a better understanding of how things should be than I do.

When Britney shaves off all her hair and beats paparazzi with umbrellas - that's what celebrities are supposed to do. They're not supposed to be reasonable, middle-aged guys drinking organic tea talking about semiotics.

It's much easier to have a diversified career as an electronic musician than it is as a drummer. Nothing against drummers. If you're a drummer, you just wait around for people to ask you to play drums. But if you have your own studio and can make music, you have the ability to approach music a lot differently.

Never have public feuds with anyone who's surrounded by people who carry guns.