I like to write early in the morning, like, 5 a.m. If I'm really on my game, I don't have any coffee or stimulants. I'm kind of in a dream state.

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!"

I like to go play shows just to see people, so I'm not in the game of like, "You're at my show, you're gonna listen to it like this, blah blah blah."

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.

I wanted to be a writer when I was a little kid. Then I wanted to be Pete Townshend - the songwriting guitarist who occasionally sang.

I sometimes try a variance of the drawer trick - [I write it] and then come back to it and see if it blows.

Advice is not really very useful. People gave me terrible advice, and I guess I was just smart enough to ignore some of it.