I always thought 'Stump' was kind of like, you dropped something on your foot. It's not the most exotic rock-star name.

The music business is one of a few places where everything you've heard about it seems entirely cliche, but it's true.

I would love to hang out with Elvis Costello, to see what he's up to because he seems so fascinating to me.

I am genuinely into soul, R&B and hip hop - all these genres that get slapped under the 'soul' genre. That spoke to me more than it did to my punk-rock friends. And punk spoke more to me than it did to my soul friends. I basically didn't fit comfortably in either world.

We got nominated for a Grammy, that was really crazy, and I was sitting there and Stevie Wonder was on stage and I remember thinking "Wow, I really need to take [singing] more seriously!"

There are two types of bands - there are the ones that are basically solo projects anyways, where there's clearly the one guy who's driving the ship and everyone else is just along for the ride. And then there was my band, where you have a few very disparate-taste, creative people who kind of meet in the middle somewhere.

I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them.