I love people like Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks and David Bowie - people that project themselves as characters and that contextualizes the music.

The visual side of being a performer or in a band is, to me, as important as the music. I know not everyone shares that same opinion, but when I'm writing songs or working on lyrics or coming up with an idea, I think about videos as I'm in the studio. If I had all the money in the world, I would have the most amazing videos ever, you know? You're saying grandiose, and big; if the song warrants it, I try to push the visuals as far as I can.

I'm very much into collaboration. I think that collaboration is the road to making something great. I respect artists that are more autocrats and are in control of their own projects, but it's not really my style. I've always had that partnership.

I saw a lot of drugs and strange things when I was younger, but I also think it was a positive experience because I was surrounded by these really interesting, beautiful people that were trying to get their lives back on track.

My job is to file things! I'm not going to be like, "Mr. Jacobsen from Oakland, California" - just listing his problems, like a rap.

It's really cool what you can do with a guitar and a Fender Twin and a space echo.

In the beginning I had a lot of self-imposed limitations as far as production and instrumentation. It was really inspiring for us at the time, because those limitations allowed us to push ourselves as songwriters and gave us a strong sound that people could recognize as ours, like wearing a leather jacket every day. A uniform. They know it's you - and that's great - but my original intention wasn't to be a shoegaze band or to be derivative of one sound.