It's awkward, because sometimes you find new friends that are cooler than your old friends, and then your old friends desperately try to cling on to you even though you sort of hate them by now.

I was really psyched about crooner types like Frank Sinatra or Scott Walker. Something that comes more from the stomach than the throat. There's an emotional thrust to singing that way that I wanted to try on my own. I can't really sing deep and strong like that, but I wanted to just aim in that direction.

I've had the idea since high school, of writing music just for voices, just a choir. I don't know if I'll ever get around to doing it, but I'd definitely be excited about trying to pull that off at some point. It definitely seems like an older-me kind of project.

I enjoy trying to figure out a way to deal with machines - they become like little buddies or something. It's almost the same way you might develop a relationship with a dog - maybe that's weird to say - but there becomes an understanding you reach after a while.

I don't listen to music throughout the day very often. I don't own a record player. I don't really have a stereo system. Most of the music I listen to these days is on the web or on MySpace pages, stuff like that.

Even before I wrote any songs, I had this idea of a triangle where the voice was at the top, some sort of guitar element on one side, and then some sort of really basic rhythm on the other side. That's where I started from in the recording process.

I have no interest in making music solely for a white audience. If that's what our audience is, I don't really feel responsible for that.