I make records with an open mind, I always have.

The labels are not getting the returns they want from their PR. Plus, for every Taylor Swift there are a hundred thousand nobodies out there who are probably making better music. Self-releasing is the only way to go.

No one else in our family was a professional musician so this took an enormous leap of faith on their part.

The ukulele was the first of many instruments they had bought for me. They got me a guitar when I was eleven, which my son Morgan uses until this day. They paid for 3 years of guitar lessons; they bought me a bass fiddle, which I still play.

I think the whole obsession with old gear is completely overblown. You don't need old-fashioned gear to make a great-sounding record. You don't even need [analog] tape.

We always started these albums as making demos, that went right on until Scary Monsters.

The eighties turned the whole system upside down. They would sign three groups and give them five or ten million dollars each to make three records. Out of those three records maybe one would be a hit. The economy changed, and that's why the music changed.