But huge photographs of dead bodies are slightly different. I couldn't find much humor there.

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

What we are fed through the media I do not accept, unless you see it with your own eyes you cant trust anything.

I knew what I didn't want to do- that's always my starting point. The starting point is always that I don't want to repeat myself. Or I try my best not to, with varying degrees of success.

I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.

I did photography, painting, and drawing, but I prefer sculpture. I like it because it's very physical.

I didn't even know the industry of songwriting existed. I thought everybody sang songs and they were only singing the songs that they wrote. So after I found out about songwriting in college, I was like, "Okay, I want to do that."