Art is always a fight and it never pays the way scientific does.
Being broke is not a philosophy.
I bought a bass when I could finally afford an electric guitar.
I find that touring is one of the most productive times for me to concentrate on writing.
I have not given up because you, my friends have not given up on me.
I know that a working class background is something that is romanticized by music and art writers, but anyone from this kind of past can see its glamorization as fraudulent.
I love to travel when I’m not touring.
I never got tired of loud and fast music, but I was never fully satisfied with writing that kind of music.
I never try to restore any moods or atmospheres on a record.
I think chapbooks are amazing. They were the precursor to the independent record label.
I think I’ve been in Paris at least five times and I’ve never done one tourist thing. I’ve never seen the Eiffel Tower, the Sienne. I just saw the inside of a rock club.
If I’m not feeling great, I normally put on sad music.
If you say, ‘I’m going to write a record about World War I bi-planes’, and then it turns out all the songs are references to pilot names, and battles, and the types of bombs, and the amount of ammo that they have in the machine guns, that really freaks out people that really just wanted to hear about the bi-planes.
It takes a huge army of people to support something that has no defined ending, no defined goals.
Music for me is not really a reaction to everyday events. It’s something that I pursue.
Music is my blood.
Sometimes I’ll record ten songs that are thematically related, and then they just never make the record because it doesn’t seem to be a cohesive piece.
Treatment is good, getting to deal with a lot of things that even the music didn’t want to.
When I write songs, I am only writing with that individual piece in mind.
