There's the idea that you have to know how to solve the world's problems in order to feel that something is morally wrong. I'm always back and forth between optimism and depression about the situation.

I think when you've been in a band for a really long time, sometimes you don't appreciate what's good about yourself. It's easy to play something and get too focused on some small detail. It's helpful to have somebody around who can say, "No, that was good." Just so you don't get too lost or forget what you do. You need somebody you really trust who has great taste.

Being in a rock band, I feel a certain responsibility to have a weird haircut. I mean, who else gets to do that?

I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible. The thing that's always been interesting to me about religion is that compared to the more modern spirituality, the West Coast pseudo-Buddhist thing that people go for these days, actual Buddhism and Islam have been looking at these philosophical questions, at really hard questions, for a long time. There's a lot of stuff that philosophy doesn't talk about, and in the secular world, a lot of times, people don't talk about these ideas, and that was always really interesting for me.

I try not get too self-aware when writing lyrics.

The film Black Orpheus is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil.

I don't think the emotional quality is the defining quality of the music but it's definitely something that people have picked up on a lot