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

I think songwriters are more related to fiction writers. The Odyssey was a story in song. To me, that's so beautiful, all those painted characters, all those travels and adventures.

I think that I'm always going to think that it's silly to value certain things that no matter how many people find it really valuable, it's always just going to seem a little silly to me.

Pickle jars are just pickle jars, and pickles are just pickles.

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 think that you have to let yourself be agitated and annoyed and not be fully comfortable.

This is the way I want to die. Torn apart by angry fans who want me to play a different song.