I wanted to lift the aspects of the lyrics and imagery that I found sincerely powerful and touching, plus the amazing musical extremities, and make my own thing. That's what making music has always been for me. Synthesizing a nonexistent kind of music that I wish existed because I wanted to listen to it.

Death is natural, and it happens early for some people. I acknowledge that, and in the next sentence, reject it, because it just sucks. It hurts. I can at the same time acknowledge it as true, and then have my protest against it.

A lot of my songs are about death and the fleetingness of life. It just feels good to remind myself about that a lot. For whatever reason. And it's a beautiful thing, actually. It seems to me like it's a beautiful way to live in the world and to relate to things, with an awareness of temporality.

It's nice to have a band that can adapt to whatever show we're in, so we can play on a big stage or a house show.

Nirvana really touched me as a teenager and started making me pay attention to music as a participatory thing that I could do. Music that you want to throw your body into it - that's a feeling that I'm not quite satisfied with having made yet.

I was going to tweet every three seconds about every thought that went through my mind, and I did that for a few days. It was really fun, and funny to me.

If my music is political in a way, and it might be, it's in the way of generating a sensitivity in people, a deeper awareness of the world around them. That's my goal, at least.