When you get an idea, it's not going to be a great idea until you push it. You’ve got to push it until it’s uncomfortable. And then you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Does my project say to my audience what I want it to say?’ ”

When you get an idea, it's not going to be a great idea until you push it. You’ve got to push it until it’s uncomfortable. And then you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Does my project say to my audience what I want it to say?’ ”

When you're making records, you develop, and so you hear the things you want to move away from. It stings a little, but you know, you gotta own it too. You've got to just go, "You know, I wasn't afraid to learn in front of people, so I give myself a little credit for not being afraid of anything."

Being the boss of your own career, you get used to having veto power and getting what you want, or as close to what you want as you have mapped out.

Sounds like to have space sometimes. It's good to give yourself a variety, or you just fatigue your ear. Like if somebody sings in the same register all the time, or if it's got the same feel the whole way through, I just find I get fatigued, so it's nice to break it up.

Rich kids who write songs about food stamps always piss me off. I'm not going to write any songs about that, either.

A live show is one of the last holdouts of a thing that makes you feel a part of a community, where you'll go and maybe meet your future wife or boyfriend, or you're taking your sister to her first show. These are the things that you remember later in your life.