I think any songwriter or record, no matter how good it is, can become tedious if it's the same person's point of view. After four tracks, you start ….

I have some irrepressible pop impulses to write an appealing, concise song. And I also have some irrepressible kind of restlessness as well, and I ne….

In New York, I'm playing in a church, solo, doing instrumental stuff. There's talk of doing more, like, installation-type things with some of the spe….

Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research..

There's been this perception that Europeans still hold on to, that they discover the real talented ones in American culture and give them proper cred….

I still play solo shows. And some of those shows are still some of the best, most gratifying shows..

The weirdest time is when I'm having to explain myself all day to journalists, and then I don't perform, so there's no release, just a lot of self-co….

It's like you don't know you're making a record unless you're half-killing yourself..

I don't like to disappear between records. I like to play shows while I'm making the record..

I really like the sound of analog things where clearly there's something being touched. You can sense that something is handmade. So much with digita….

Sometimes I just think we're not meant to fly halfway around the world in a day. That some kind of mutation is going to happen..

There's songs that could either be taken as a conversation between two people, like "The Privateers," or "Why," from a much earlier record. Or "Glass….

There's always a tension between wanting to write a really concise, instant gratification type song that gets under your skin the first time you hear….

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound. It's not trying to replace a band, per se. It's become a ….

This might be a controversial thing to suggest, but in a quest to understand and relate to terrorism or school shootings, sometimes it feels like it'….

I've always had levity in my songs, so I like to turn things over, twist them around, and make fun of myself..

The first splurge of creativity is kind of free, and the last 30 percent is painstakingly hard work, but it's good to light a fire and make it public….

I'm not a home-studio guy. I spend a lot of time working by myself developing songs, but I really need some other counterpart to help me pull it all ….

I don't like super-descriptive modern fiction. I like, "Here's what was happening in 1582 all over the planet." Then that gets my imagination going..

I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive..

I finished touring the last record and I started recording new .I never really left the bubble, which is I think a good thing. I was just very focuse….