Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.

I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head.

My wife says that I changed people's lives or ways of thinking and that I should always be proud and grateful. If I'm dismissive of what we do sometimes, a little bit, she's like, "I was a fan, you changed my life," or whatever. That's what she says.

Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody.

George Oppen wasn't a larger than life personality, but I'm not either. And he lived a long time, so he was happy. Going down in flames is fine, too.

I'm better when I'm an autodidact and things just come. Or you're just blessed. I'm not bragging or anything, it just comes to you.

One time I went to Berlin and, for some reason, everywhere I was going they had fishbowls. Like a fishbowl by your bed or a fish tank in the bar. They seem obsessed with this IKEA version of nature, which a fishbowl kind of is. They had that going on. I just don't really like having a goldfish by the side of my bed. I feel kind of sad for it, rather than happy. But I thought that was really weird. Maybe they have human fishbowls.