When you're signed to a big label you're always in the position of convincing them, especially now because labels are barely keeping the lights on, so getting them to spend a little bit of money is really hard.

If you look at the history of demagoguery and fascism, it always happens when there are two things. It requires a gentle populace to allow it to happen, whether through laziness, ignorance or ineptitude, but it also requires a very angry, dissatisfied section of the populace who want egregiously simple answers to very complicated problems.

I have no patience for anyone who thinks they've figured things out, no patience for people who think they're right at the expense of everyone else. The world is too connected and too complicated to conform to any of our rigid ideas of what it should be like.

Basically we should stop doing those things that are destructive to the environment, other creatures, and ourselves and figure out new ways of existing.

As a New Yorker you can't help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted 'Rhapsody in Blue' here; the Velvet Underground are from New York.

Sit down, close your eyes, and think about dogs for ten minutes. On a very clear, physiological, and neurochemical level, your body is changed by these really positive thoughts.

One of the nice things about licensing music to movies or advertisements is you can reach a lot of people who normally wouldn't hear music.