“I don’t mind that I’ve created an identity around what I do.”

When you completely extract yourself from anything familiar.

I think the Internet has a way of coaching you into this state of mind where you think that every step you make needs to completely supersede the last.

And we use it to read album reviews and watch kitten videos… not to put those two things in the same light!

There’s something really fun and spooky about that teenage feeling of narcissism or indestructibility.

But all you can do is ignore the annoying hum of the machine and focus on making art that makes you excited to be alive.

Because anybody can find their fan base through the Internet.

You start reverting back to that state of mind where you’re having conversations with yourself, and that’s where the weirdest and most honest ideas come from.

Memory is just as much of an instrument as anything else in music.

Let alone 15 minutes – to decide what you think about it.

And sometimes you have to let it go limp and detach yourself from any associations.

Is my music indicative of a caffeine-surged green liquid? Probably not.

I never willfully want to write the same record twice, which is probably why I jump from project to project.

The way you phrase it might change, but it will always continue to happen, and there’s something really charming and calming about that.

“It’s not where you got it from, it’s where you take it.” To me, that’s just an integral part of why I even bother making music.

it opens opportunities up for talented people along with people like Rebecca Black.

I wanted it to feel like I was tapping into a thing, even if it wasn’t.

You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don’t love and don’t have peace. And then some day you going to bust loose and be ruined.

You need an incredible amount of self-confidence to go digging around in someone’s brain.

I actually went to study with the Ramapoughs in New York. I wanted to be able to see the mountains and the forest, be around the people.

Christmas for me is all about spending time with my family. I cherish any chance we have to spend all day together making gingerbread houses, baking cookies, or sitting around and watching movies.

We don’t know what’s around the corner – and we must do everything to ensure we get our country’s debts down, building our resilience so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.

My father was obsessed with folk music from around the world, and I think the countless artists who performed them are my biggest influences.

Illogical thinkers throw names and slurs around because they have no arguments with which to rebut their opponents. Rational people have to keep hammering their points home.

I came from a big family – two brothers and two sisters. So, there were always a ton of boys around and a ton of girls around. So, I grew up comfortable with both sexes.