I still have access to enough money to live on in order to avoid bankruptcy for at least a few years as long as I stick to my budget Still, there's no amount of money in the world that makes one feel content with having no self respect. There's no amount of money that makes you feel better when people think of you as a joke or a hack or a failure or ugly or stupid or morally empty.

I love New Zealand. Every time I'm in New Zealand someone makes a joke about it being mostly sheep, which I think is unfair, because it's mostly nice people. It's mostly nice people and really wonderful scenery.

I don't want names, but you have to have bumped into some pretty nasty artists with pretty big chips on their shoulders. I'd like an anecdote about the most obnoxious personality you had the misfortune of working with, albeit as anonymously as you feel comfortable divulging.

Most producers get into it because they were just never handsome or charismatic or talented enough to be the star.

When you're No. 1 or No. 300, you still get to play and write the songs.

Good music is good music, regardless of where it comes from. I think that's a really important thing to carry with you.

When you're a little kid, you just like music that makes you happy and is fun. As you get older, you reach college or your 20s and you decide that music should be challenging and all art should be smart. So you start to think it makes you like high art more to put down things you consider low art. I don't even think things are low art.