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

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.

If a band isn't coming up with two to four of those when they pick up their instruments, then they have problems - even if none of them turn into a song. If that's not happening in a band, it's time for therapy or breaking up.

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

I try to be patient. I feel like the point of art is to go down within yourself and to pop up into other people. If you're lucky, all of a sudden you're like, "whoop!" You're in other people.

I saw an interview with Jay-Z where he said he didn't write down any of his lyrics, so I tried that.

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.