I think every artist that you like, or even artists that have defined their own times, they're definitely looking to the past as a starting place. It's just about how you infuse your own personality, your own message, and your own ideas into it. The record is supposed to be really sensual and sexy.

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.

If you have a lot of textural stuff happening in music you get called shoegaze, or whatever, and then it becomes about the sound and not about the songs.

I think that from the beginning of me making music, I always had it in my mind to combine things that I like to listen to in a way that I had never heard before.

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.