You travel with the hope that something unexpected will happen. It has to do with enjoying being lost and figuring it out and the satisfaction. I always get a little disappointed when I know too well where I’m going, or when I’ve lived in a place so long that there’s no chance I could possibly get lost.
I think I'm still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.
Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.
If something gets under my own skin, and keeps reoccurring, it starts to take on a certain weight and value, and I think, "I have to put this in the song. I have no choice but to mention Greek Cypriots in this song." It's a little internal challenge to myself. Like creating little imaginary rituals in yourself to help the song go from nonexisting to existing.
Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.
There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science.
Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.
I really believe there's more honesty in one live show than there may be in my whole output.
I think life is a wondrous thing. I'm happy to try pretty hard.
I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.
I just pay attention to what's in my head. That's my number-one rule.
I'm into lately being a little less precious about writing and being like, "Okay, what if I just locked myself in my room, pretend that there's someone outside with a gun that's saying, 'Don't come out until you write something.'"
When I start asking my friends, "What do you think this means?" And it leads to way more interesting conversations than what it actually ends up meaning in the dictionary. Like "apocryphal," for instance.
I've always felt that dark lyrics with dark music is pretty useless. Maybe that's a strong statement - not useless, but for me, it's just boring.
My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.
The real drag is trying to fly from country to country, day of show, with all your gear. You get hassled all the time. It's hard trying to keep it together.
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.
Music as a social conduit has always been important to me.
The anti-aging advert that I would like to see is a baby covered in cream saying, 'Aah, I've used too much'
Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.
I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.
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 and create that expectation. It's become part of the writing process, really, a way to ask the audience what they think, how they think it's going. I can't write songs in a vacuum.
All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.
I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.
A good espresso to me is a little bit salty; you just become used to a good taste. Anytime I go into a new place and they don't clean their machine properly or the water temperature isn't right, it tastes awful.
