Harout Pamboukjian is one of the biggest Armenian folk singers in the world. In the '70s, he was making these records that were really Zeppelin-influenced.

I'm a huge Beatles fan, but I've only really gotten into them as an adult.

My two interests are spirituality and politics. I would mesh them in some way; maybe try to figure out the politics of spirituality, or the spirituality of politics. Or maybe come up with this really crazy naive solution for the end of civilization.

Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.

I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art.

The most important thing about music that I've learned after all this time is that to me, it's a way of reaching the truth.

I think every artist should follow their vision, their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for.