The Conversation was a movie I saw probably for the first time in the early 2000s. I immediately loved the piano and just how simple it is.

I didn't know who Meredith Monk was, and I knew about Laurie Anderson but I didn't know her music that well.

I've already done two cover albums. I don't know, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to do another, but I just did the Led Zeppelin song for fun, and I thought I could do it kind of quick since songs that I love a lot I can do fast.

The first song I wrote was "Look Both Ways Before You Cross" from Imaginaryland. I started the song by singing a bass line, "hoo hoo hoo hoo."

I love the Bach Prelude No. 2 in C Minor and had that stuck in my head: why don't I put this on Imaginaryland? So I brought it to my friend Tom Grimley who recorded That Dog's first record. I played him all my a cappella pieces, and he said, "P, you should really make a record, it would be great! You can record it at my studio and I'll put it out!"

I never punched in anything when I recorded Imaginaryland. Where the title came from is a whole other story.

I got a new 4-track cassette recorder a year or so after high school. For a while I would just stare at it thinking, how am I going to do this if I don't play guitar or keyboards? How am I going to write and record a song if I don't know how to play any instruments? I mean, I played the violin, but I didn't know anything about how to work a 4-track.