On days where I feel the karma is in balance I'm not afraid of death. And when I feel it's weighing heavily on the negative side, then I get very scared and just think about eternal damnation and how unpleasant that would be.

We always keep things very, very simple. We can make a respectable living playing a smaller room that somebody else couldn't, because they're spending a lot of money. If we can't get a show up and deliver with what we almost intrinsically have in our brains and our pockets, then I don't really want to do it.

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

There's nothing that compares to watching that final of Charles Mee’s 'The Glory of the World' play at BAM17 to 20 minute sequence in one sitting. It fills you with a giddy energy watching that. Then, being gifted with the silence that follows...I've never had a theatrical experience like that before, I'm sure.

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

For me, promotional thing about some new album coming out destroys a lot of the excitement of making records. Records, movies, books - they're not supposed to be like math books. The purpose of them is to kind of take us out of ourselves and give us some sort of alternate experience or respite. To try to maximize the relationship of listening to a record through promotion is like experiencing driving a car by reading about stimulus programs. It kind of defeats the purpose.

I still make music. I still write music and I record music, I just don't trust music promotion [and] distribution right now enough to record a new set of diligently worked-upon compositions. I do trust the audience and the audiences very much.