I'm not very interesting. Birds are interesting. I could stand there lip-synching all day long, but it would feel funny, and people would be able to tell. I'm not a good actress.

There's just kind of a sweetness about Canadians. Americans are a little more pushy, I mean, in a way that I enjoy - they're basically pushy because of their enthusiasm - we're a lot clumsier than other people.

I try not to be overly literal. When I'm writing songs, I write down a lot of words, and then I try to simplify it. I like to give people hints or words that make visual pictures for them.

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

I have this typical Ukrainian face. Even people who know my music don't recognize me most of the time, thank God.

There's no grand excellence to it. In my experience it was just almost the gulaggy boringness of it that'll kill you. You're just in this murk. And you're with other humans, but you lose all your human skills and it's just like you're in this plastic bag and you can't quite connect with people. You lose your ability to transmit electricity or something, and to receive it.

Every band wants to go believe me, not everybody makes it, but they want to.