I think people are naturally good, I see it every day. Look at this restaurant. No one's causing anybody any trouble in here. We're all sitting, respecting each other's space, we're keeping our voices down, we're saying "please" and "thank you" - those are acts of generosity that we commit on a second by second basis that we don't give ourselves enough credit for. There's a lot of kindness in this world, we're just such vain creatures; our vanity can be used against us so easily. We're like dogs, hairless dogs.

Blind hope. Blind hope is all we have. There's a Greek tragedy called Prometheus Bound; Prometheus is the [titan] that gave humans fire. He's chained to a rock and bemoaning his fate and saying, "I gave you everything. By giving you fire, I gave you blind hope. By giving you a little light that kept you warm at night, I let you believe that this was all going to be okay." For me, that's what art has been. Music and books, it's an act of hope to make them, and it's an act of hope to listen to them. That hope will be dashed, you will say goodbye.

For all of my life, I've had this one song in my head, and I'm still trying to write it. I'm still trying to get that song out. I'm getting closer, every record I get a little bit closer to saying it the way I want to say it.

People are terrible. They do terrible things to each other, they hurt each other, they lie, they're vain, they're shallow, they're violent ... but they're all we have.

I'm not confident about my appearance, I'm not confident about anything really in my life, I'm a very tortured soul when it comes to self-confidence, but when it comes to my pop songs, if I started to question, I would never stop questioning.

My pledge to myself is I will believe in my music, always. I stand behind everything I do. If I don't think it's amazing, how the hell is anyone else going to think it's amazing? But that's just me.

Acknowledging that we lose is the overarching theme in everything in Stars. To me, that's what punk means. Stars is a punk band because we acknowledge loss. We're not trying to win. We're not trying to project victory. You win alone. I'm not interested in singing for the one winner in the room; I'm interested in singing for all of the losers in the room.