My dream many years ago would've been to continue to write and record songs in record/album form for years to come, but now records aren't what they were then - and so it doesn't actually feel very good to make a record of songs.

I have a mantra that kind of explains my feelings on this subject, which is, "The past is the present is the future." When you're recording something, you're making something that will exist in the future.

Frank Sinatra's never been handsome, but he's one of my favorite singers. Who needs looks when you have a voice and power?

I don't know the reasons why something is intimidating to me or disgusting to me and I don't like feeling that way, either. I don't like it when something turns me off, on any level. So, its a matter of saying: Well, I can either sit here and reject, or I can do double-time embracing of something else just to reassure myself that I'm not against the world.

It's O.K. to accept good fortune.

A record is something that isn't real or true. It's like cinema. It's a construction of something hyper-real and surreal and unreal all at the same time. You make a space that doesn't really exist. One of the big joys of being in this line of work is building the recorded versions of the songs.

I think everybody works from a defensive position, for the most part, in the film industry.