If time is my vessel, then learning to love might be my way back to sea

My influences are vast and varied. I was into classic rock at the same time that I was into hip-hop. It was just that hip-hop was the first music that I got really really into. Rock was right on its tail.

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

When I say I had a cosmic confidence that we were capable of writing good music, I'm speaking about that time when we met Sam [Fogarino]. Greg [ex-drummer] is actually a really great drummer and a great guy. I never want to sound like I am belittling his contributions in the early days, but when Sam joined, there was an immediacy of, like, "Here we go."

I would have issues with directions songs were taking, but I never heard one of Carlos' [Dangler] basslines and said, "I don't like that, do something else." The same goes for the beat and the guitars. I think that's why we were able to make four albums together.

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.

If you're playing a one-minute game, I could squeeze in five to six games before anybody walked by my cubicle. So I got really good at blitz, one-minute chess games. But that's kind of like the cheap chess version.