Sometimes you learn about the personality of your favorite artist, and you like their art a little less, because it doesn't jibe with what you had envisioned.

If you're an artist, you do what you do, and in a way, you don't even control the core essence of what you do. You try to mold it and develop a style, but the core elements of what you do are just part of who you are.

I didn't come in and say: "I'm a singer." I came into the band as a second guitar player and a vocalist, but not the songwriter. I had been writing poetry for years, so I sort of had the nature of the words. I felt like no one else could sing my lyrics, so I took a crack at it.

I got the chess bug when I was finishing high school, we were doing chess tournaments at my house. I never got to a very high level.

Everyone is broken-hearted except for the drastically unimaginative

That's for non-musicians to say: "I only listen to this or that type of music." I think musicians love all music, or at least that's my case.

Jeffrey Lewis sings as though absurdity were truth, and truth absurdity. And I think I agree with him.