The only way for me to give a good performance is to make myself extremely uncomfortable - and it just so happens that being on stage makes me extremely uncomfortable.

In a way, the whole music industry is just catering to the inherent esteem issues all these artists have - it lays it all out on the line and baits the artist, like a light baits a mosquito. And you go right into it. With every comment on the internet, you go up, you go down, and it's a big shitshow full of uneducated people.

I first saw Dead Man in high school, and it changed everything. That movie was like a memory to me - I would get things that occurred in that movie confused with my actual life.

People tend to believe that I want to make soul music, which is not entirely untrue but, really, I want to be like the black Tom Waits - I don't want to make one kind of sound.

I think that live music is really pretentious - all of it. I hate festivals and live shows, because as soon as I get on stage, I start performing for people and it becomes about sex, banter, and skill. They're looking at me and not thinking about themselves. I'm thinking about how cool I look. It's just stupid - all live music is really stupid. I wouldn't encourage going to see anybody live, ever. Not even me.

You got this new breed of hipster chicks and hipster men that don't understand anything about sacrifice. They didn't lay it on the line. People like Cat Power, Tom Waits, they are the last of the beats, the real true philosophers.

That's not to say I came from the streets or anything - most of the time I was on my grandmother's back porch. I was kept in a constant state of amniotic fluid.