When you do a cover it's a way to get attention clicking on something. At the Quiet Music Festival, The Jicks did this Nirvana song, very unrehearsed and not important, but then all the websites were like, "They covered Nirvana!" People like covers of famous people.

It's hard to think back. I didn't even know I was going to do it, make actual records. But I was always making up songs, once I figured out that you could do it. I think it's pretty much the same, but there's less urge to get it moving out there. There was a time when it seemed like it was really super important to the audience and now it's just medium-important for people to like us. But that's okay.

With some songs, I have written narratives or I've tried to carry it through, but generally the things that were more genius, as far as I was concerned, were not that.

My wife is a big fan of George Oppen and I got into him. I could have a career like his. It's not an alpha male situation, George Oppen. It's quiet. It's poetry.He just lived a life of an intellectual poet.

Things tends to often [consolidate] like Disney. It's the same with music. There's Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young and Patti Smith. There's these three people that everyone seems to agree on. No matter what they like, they seem to like those three.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

I just don't think people listen. I mean, they can't listen to a whole album closely without checking their iPhone or wanting to skip to their favorite song, or putting something else on, practically. That's why the zone out is a good thing.