Just because a suit fits, doesn't mean it looks good. You need a tailor. You want to get bespoke.

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

Any time you have a song that is directly connected to a very specific musical trend of the moment, you have immediately cut it off at the knees, doesn't matter if it goes to number one in the world, if you're too attached to a production style.

I'm a huge Lady GaGa fan - she makes the world a more incredible place.

The cool thing about writing music, writing anything, is that once you publish it, it's there forever.

If you're talking to an architect, he can look at a blank piece of paper, and once the initial design is there, the formula kicks in. Each room should have something unique and different about it - much the same way that in a song, every eight bars or so, a new piece of information should be introduced.

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.