I think there is such a valid concept as "serious music," meaning that if you don't take it seriously, you don't get it all..

When you're making a singular pop song, you don't really need any subject matter. You just sort of say, "Uh, I love you." And then you try to figure ….

Popular music of the last 50 years has failed to keep in step with advances in musical theater, namely Stephen Sondheim. But the two have grown apart….

You know, most love songs are not cheesy and corny. Most love songs are complaints, I think. Or about unrequited love, coming at it from some oblique….

I write songs by sitting around in bars, so drinking songs are a little obvious. It's surprising that I don't write entirely drinking songs, since I ….

There's a whole kind of melancholy that you can only attain with reverb. That's an example of a technology introducing a whole new meaning..

If you start out with a song sounding like Britney Spears, and you end up with a song sounding like Pauline Oliveros, you'd better have pretty good l….

Never try to do anything artistic when you're feeling something overwhelming. It's like driving a car: If you're experiencing road rage, pull over..

The adventure is when people don't know what they're doing at all. Like, I think that the first pop band to use synthesizers as their main instrument….

There are only so many instruments you can layer on top of each other that aren't perfectly electronically programmed. "Long Vermont Roads" just cann….

At first I was laboring under the impression that Chinese lyrics didn't rhyme. That turned out to be untrue - they don't rhyme in translation..

Well, there are certainly original things to say. But I'm not sure that a pop song is the appropriate format to say them in..

Well, hardcore is so much about the body, in that you have to play as fast as possible. I'm not sure it can be ironized. You can't play faster, thoug….

My mother says I have boring percussion..

There are so many clichés in the world, especially in music, that it's a never-ending creative font to just bring two of them together and let them i….

Serious music isn't listened to in a casual setting. You don't want to listen to that in headphones on the subway..

That seems like one of the differences in expectations of "serious" and "popular" music that you can actually depend on the liner notes to explain yo….

I don't remember things initially when listening to music. Like, I don't remember where I first heard a song, I don't have nostalgic attachment to a ….

I don't think there are any clichés I try to avoid. As soon as I spot a cliché, I go for it. I feel like clichés are the most useful thing in songwri….

I'm not too sure if I have a very smart approach to revealing my life. Luckily, I doubt if many people really care about my life that much..

I can imagine lyrics becoming better written by smart machines rather than stupid musicians. Songwriters generally have nothing to say. They may as w….