Something taken off the page can sound great, I guess. Usually it doesn't. It seems like lately Pitchfork is trying to champion lyric writers more.

Don't go to the same studio twice, or work with the same engineer twice.

Traditionally, when we lived here [in Portland], we have a record player in the living room, and there's lots of stuff playing, all different kinds of music. I don't listen to any of those Internet radio things. I have iTunes on my thing, but I've never bought a single thing on it. Except for "Call Me Maybe," for the kids or whatever. Carly Rae Jepsen.

Berlin is just an affordable European city that's supposed to be cool. There's nothing too deep about it.

When I was a kid I really liked the guitarist of The Doors [Robby Krieger]. He plays blues, but he plays a lot of melodic things. He plays scales that are kind of unusual, and some bent notes.

If there can be some paradigm shift thing that you can be part of, that's cool.

I'm not sure if you can blame everything on the American way of life, but the United States are big. So, if you have a lot of people there, the percentage of stupid people is bound to be higher.