Funnily enough, I feel the most free to be myself when I'm not doing my solo project. Whenever I'm in a situation when it's a side thing or it's something not so infused with my ego. When I'm all over everything, it's a big responsibility and half the time leaves me in some weird nether state of insecurity and doubt.
I don't work under the illusion that I'm the next whatever. Every time a record comes out, if it gets a good review, I'm like, "Well, one more year, guys. We bought ourselves another year".
As for performing live, I just never imagined how it would work out; for good reason, because it doesn't just work out - not the way you think it will. It's a chance that you take.
My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me.
In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out.
I remember being very psyched for our first tours, despite not knowing about the endless stream of situations and setbacks that we'd face.
I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them.
The universe is expanding, and every second that you're alive, the universe is bigger than it was a second before. There's nothing in front of us, exactly, other than the future, and there's no space for the size, the density of the universe to go. Because it's expanding at every point simultaneously.
I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things.
It was not designed for me to be 35 and still doing the same thing. But in another sense, it's like I've had an extended adolescence. It helps that I look young, too.
For me, self-gratification eventually took a backseat to trying to do something collaborative with other people, to trying to make something new.
I've kind of gotten more timid. I used to be fearless - at a certain point I didn't care about what anybody thought. I had all the answers and I could have been as bad as I wanted to be. But nowadays I just want to be good and make people happy.
From day one, I was already famous in my own head. It didn't take anything to make me feel that way. I know I'm totally not famous. I mean, it just depends on your perspective.
You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them. I mean, if you can find somebody that doesn't drive you crazy, I would say marry that.
If somebody ever says something is a mature theme, it's bound to not be. I mean, you shouldn't fall for that. You can make it sound mature, but anything that's about being mature is pretty immature.
I always want to be a member in the audience, and I want to hear it from their point of view and see it from their point of view so I can know if it's good. But that's just my issues, not a real problem.
I definitely don't feel a sense of jealousy or competition, and that's a really good feeling.
You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out.
Everything comes with hard work. You never get to stop working. I don't see myself ever getting comfortable enough to not have to worry about working.
I always want to do something that just sort of fits the mood. It's supposed to help the song, it's not supposed to take away from the song or re-contextualize it. I always feel like the less you make it a conceptual territorial debut, the better.
The first half of high school, I had a girlfriend, and then the second half I got to know these guys who would just get stoned and jam. I had struck the goth thing by then, but I still thought of myself as Ian Curtis or something.
I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that.
The music usually occurs to me as a complete sound, and then I have developed the skill of being able to translate that into a fully realized song.
I've always wanted to do a movie, and I really feel the urge to do it.I'm in Hollywood - I have no business not being in the movie industry.
Talk about a struggling artist having to work against enormous odds ... But I love movies so much, so I'm going to do it.
