Sometimes it's a fraught, kind of laden world of performance that I think can be really dubious, but it's also super fun to almost desecrate an instrument that for 500 years has been associated with God.

I download music just like anybody else, but it's a weird relationship when you're a musician.

I love vinyl, but I'm not a 'vinyl person'. I still collect, but most of my stuff is digital.

I take the literary or textual aspect really seriously and I really enjoy writing weird album titles. I did a PhD; I enjoy writing.

There have always been people making music. On their porches, playing folk songs. Playing piano in quiet salons. You don't have to listen to every MySpace page, so what's the difference? It's just noise that you filter out.

I'm trying to find a way to make music work as a living. People used to make their living selling albums. Those days are over! It's kind of an odd time. I guess it's kind of like writing.

You start to think, when you're finishing a record, in twelve- to fourteen-minute chunks. At a certain point, you do write to the format. It's not a coincidence that most albums are between thirty-five and fifty minutes. It's kind of like the 98-minute film. It becomes some paradigm for human attention in the media.