I don't see us as a big media gimmick band. We don't have a cultivated appearance or anything like Kiss.

Well, I worked in a sheet metal factory once and scarred my wrist from the cuts. I found a sympathetic psychiatrist who told the draft board I was insane. We used the scars as proof of a suicide attempt.

I grew up taking piano lessons and liking Wagner when I was in second grade.

Emily Dickinson has great sound and sense.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

I wonder what all those Chinese poets sound like in Chinese. I like their distilled quality.

I can't remember ever being really bored. I find life very interesting, actually. I think some other musicians are always looking for something to give them an idea, but I find I have to reject 90 percent of my ideas because they don't live up to some self-imposed standard. That's also why I don't make a record once a year. I throw so many things out, and I have to have something to say.