There's a lot of griping and groaning about wanting to play half-baked new songs live, but you don't want it to just end up on YouTube with like 74 thumbs down: "This is the worst!"

At certain point, you realize it's easy to play music for the rest of your life: just don't sell your guitar. Maybe you get a day job, but as long as you have a guitar, you can play.

I like being a musician that's also a fly on the wall. I like people coming in the room and doing what they do and then leaving. I like attention, but it actually gives me a little less to work with as a performer if people are editing themselves and not being them.

There was no indie rock band in the 90s at the level of, like, Grizzly Bear. I listen to their records and it's crazy how good they sound. That really freaks me out.

Now, by and large, people are recording material to put on YouTube. I have a theory that YouTube is, in the end, the #1 media for musicians. Which is strange, because there's a visual associated with it.

I'm fascinated with the attitude of younger rock bands, even ones that are making money at it. I don't ever hear them talk about it as a "career." It almost makes me think there isn't even a music industry anymore, like an atom bomb fell and it was just eradicated forever.

There are bands, like R.E.M., who want to have 17 records, and some are terrible and some are great. I don't know if people think like that anymore. Things are more atomized now.