I think the true test of a pop song, for me, and I've talked to a lot of other writers about this, is you take your demo, you pop it in your car and you drive down Sunset Blvd. to Santa Monica, and that's the Hollywood car test.

I think often times if a guitar riff is centered around the chorus or if it follows the chorus, then it often times turns into the actual hook.

I can go write an absolutely saccharine pop record with a really catchy lyric for another artist that could become a hit without meaning anything to me, but that's more the science laboratory, that's the other thing.

I have to shut down from other artists, because otherwise I end up giving them my stories.

The only thing contrived is the production - you can over-produce to the point you kill a good idea, you can under-produce so that the song's amazing but you'll have folks at a radio station saying they won't play it, so there's this balance, and it has to be true.

There is maybe a cynicism because of my past as a writer.

I am not opposed to doing a side project, like Death Cab for Cutie, where it's completely different from my own band.