Culture dictated from above is the enemy of folk music. Whether it's stuffy classical music or pre-engineered pop where somebody's paid tons of money to make sure that everyone hears this song a certain number of times a day - that feels like the opposite of folk music.

I wanted to be a filmmaker, actually, when I was in high school and college. But I just decided it would be more expensive to do, so I sort of decided music would be more fun.

Songwriting is an emotional medium, and rock and roll is an emotional medium.

I'm not pro-life. I'm very emphatically pro-choice.

I always think it's far more admirable to confuse people than it is to reassure them.

When your head is smashing into the concrete you don't have question about whether it's a real sensation. And ultimately, that's what's going to unmake us all - smashing up against the physical reality of death and decay, and being unmade.

Collaboration is such a thrill when you're working with someone you really respect. When it's just one person working alone you get a singular view of their world, and that can be great, too. But when you have different people working together with different aesthetics, different techniques, and different mediums, you get something bigger than both of them.