You should always choose your associations wisely because people create impressions around the music.
When you completely extract yourself from anything familiar, 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.
There's something really fun and spooky about that teenage feeling of narcissism or indestructibility, like the idea that every night might be the night before the world ends.
I find it so funny that for the first time in history, people have access to this great equalizer in the Internet, which grants everyone the same knowledge base, and we use it to read album reviews and watch kitten videos... not to put those two things in the same light!
There's nothing better than having an experience now that's the exact same thing I would've done when I was 16, like texting a really awkward "I like you" message to someone. The way you phrase it might change, but it will always continue to happen, and there's something really charming and calming about that.
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.
You can't always just put color filters in 80s aerobic videos or take stuff from public-access and look at it in this very ironic, self-conscious way. That only takes you so far.
We really are living in the era that all this sci-fi literature and cinema was centered around, but it's not anything like what we envisioned it to be. It's almost like there's too much choice.
I have this eerie feeling that by the time I'm 33, reality will not exist in the same plane as it did before. It's cool but also a little creepy.
I can't pretend that I don't subscribe to Internet music culture in that I discover new music and old music simultaneously.
I subscribe to the idea that personality is like a muscle, and sometimes you have to let it go limp and detach yourself from any associations.
You really need to stop Googling yourself and start being an artist.
Is my music indicative of a caffeine-surged green liquid? Probably not.
I think it's more about trying to just focus exclusively on writing music and making that a viable, sustainable lifestyle. It's difficult because it forces you to really get creative.
There's a very distinct difference between a really wonderful DIY label and a soft drink company, or a car company, or a clothing brand, and you will always understand that difference.
There's no real template to follow these days for what a band should and shouldn't be - bands are just becoming these weird little Internet avatars that you either follow or download or interact with in some removed way.
Because anybody can find their fan base through the Internet, it opens opportunities up for talented people along with people like Rebecca Black. It makes you more choosy and also more receptive to absorb anything for 15 seconds - let alone 15 minutes - to decide what you think about it.
Memory is just as much of an instrument as anything else in music, so I wanted to create soundscapes that are evocative of places that only exist in your head - that's where the fun, psychedelic stuff happens anyway.
The Internet really does create this dimension around the music that's always in relation to what else is happening at the moment. 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.
Things are changing at such a rate that you really can't get too familiar with anything that you own in relation to what sort of functionality it has in your life.
I remember a time when I would hear a band and then want to hear everything that sounded like it; I wanted it to feel like I was tapping into a thing, even if it wasn't.
I never willfully want to write the same record twice, which is probably why I jump from project to project. But I can't ignore that there are things that inspire me, and I love celebrating those.
There's this really amazing quote from Jim Jarmusch about celebrating your theft that I think has become more and more prominent in music: "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. I don't mind that I've created an identity around what I do.
