We're going to talk about the big things that matter, which are the little things, really. For me, Stars has always had one overarching theme, which is, we're all bastards, but God loves us anyway, whatever God means to you.

I'm not an endings person. I don't do endings. There may have been people in the band who wanted this to be an ending from time to time, but me and Amy don't really do endings. You cannot escape from us. Once we're friends with you, that's it.

When I see friends of mine break up and they're like, "Oh, we still really love each other, but we just couldn't make it work," I don't get that. I don't understand what that means. Make it work.

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.

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.

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 consider being a performer work. I come from a theater family; I've been an actor all my life. I started acting when I was a kid, and I've earned a living as an artist all my life. It's my job in the sense that it's everything I am, the only thing I know how to do. I literally do not have qualifications to do anything else on this planet. Seriously, it's scary. [But] I don't consider it a job [because] it's my religion - it's my faith, it's my family, it's everything to me.