Each member does whatever they want with the song and it totally changes it from whatever idea I hear around it. It turns it into a Sonic Youth song and completely away from it being a solo song.

I have to reign myself in a lot.

The band has a liberal philosophy - that's sort of a given.

I wanted to hear the songs in the way that I had written them, which was, in a way, very basic. So all I wanted to have was drums and another guitar pretty much playing what I wrote on guitar, and I was just going to sing.

Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band. because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry

Hits are for squares.

Anyone who grows up with parents who are very influential, there are cases where people run away from that if they have parents who are really lame.