Part of you just has to be in service of processing things and getting them out.

The other day I was down by the Hudson River, and I see two nuns in full habit rollerblading down the street holding hands. And I'm like, 'Oh, my God, I get it. The world is surreal and beautiful. And everything is fine.'

I'm really terrible at math, so I won't even attempt to do ratios and percentages, but all I know is that there's a lot of new songs that no-one has heard yet, and that there's a lot of old songs that some very, very super hardcore fans have heard for sure - there are people that have been coming and seeing me play in bars in like 2002, and there are songs that those people heard.

I just like being all over the place and writing whatever comes to mind. Having the tools? It's such a gift.

I spent the '80s in the Soviet Union and when I came to America it was '89 and I was in an immigrant bubble and we didn't have MTV or cable, so I kind of discovered the '80s when I was already older, maybe in college. And I continued to have this romantic obsession with all those films and there's this sound I hear in my head and it's kind of this bittersweet romantic, dark sound.

I've done that kind of stuff in records, where you start going back and you want to just redo everything, destroy everything, because you think it all sucks and you can do it better.

I don't kiss losers and I don't kiss winners, and I don't fight for honor 'cause we all are born sinners