The siren song of redistribution of wealth by centralized government never ceases for those who seek irreversible and unusurpable control over the lives and liberties of private citizens.
I've never been one like, "Oh, these are my songs" - that was done out of necessity, because there was no one to help. I have 90 percent of it written; that way, we can go on the road, be tight and have it ready to go for next year. I know I said I didn't have a grand design, but I think it's going to be like Marvin Gaye meets The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I've always thought, "I could probably write one of these country songs and send them to these places and make up this fake country band. Wouldn't it be awesome to have a completely parallel career and have nobody know about it?" I think I could get away with it. I'd be the guy from Oklahoma with country cred.
I have a vision in my hand that the labels have these vaults, like Scrooge McDuck, except instead of gold coins they have these demo CDs, and sometimes they just go in there and take a swim.
It's hard to convince people when you haven't done anything that the things you're working on are worthy of spending their time and money on: like, "Oh man, I write really great songs, I promise!"
We're not clever enough to picture something and say, "Our music is going to be Jackson Pollock meets Oprah Winfrey" and then go about achieving that. I was in a band called Olive Loaf - it was the first thing I ever did when I first started playing the guitar when I was 12, and it was sort of like Ween, although I didn't know Ween even existed at the time.
It's impossible to escape from religion anywhere you are in the States.
Had I lived in Norman and those bands hadn't existed, who knows where I'd be, I might be doing something awful; I might be a doctor, or a physicist or something. Having those kinds of experiences at 12...the Chainsaw Kittens had a flamboyant homosexual lead singer, and the Flaming Lips were obviously very weird. I had only listened to the radio before that - things like Willie Nelson - so having people say, "These are the bands around here that you should listen to," I was like "Ok, I guess this is what normal music sounds like." That definitely changed things.
I'm 24, and a lot of people my age grew up listening to bands that were big and making it from around here. I was going to Flaming Lips and Chainsaw Kittens concerts when I was 12, and getting my mind blown at a young age... and maybe for people in bands, there's irreparable damage from those kind of things, and it turns out weirder bands.
Can you imagine in 1968 some band being like, "Vietnam is the place to be!"
I can't remember who it was - maybe Brian Eno - but some important musician guy said he recorded ambient noise from a city street and after he listened to these field recordings for the millionth time, it was like, "Oh yeah, at 1:23, that's where the car horn comes in." So when you're doing stuff like this, and you've been working on it for a year, you're like, "Oh yeah man, that makes perfect sense!" And then you forget when you give it to people, they're bewildered.
People should quit their jobs, move to Oklahoma, move in with 34 people, pay $100 a month in rent and start a band or start painting. That way you'll feel like you have a purpose if you lose your mind, and you'll have some fun on the way.
In the process of making the record, I was just so bored all the time working whatever stupid job. I felt like a stagnant pond that has algae and mildew and weird animal cells, and I felt like if I sat around not doing anything long enough, that I'd probably end up going a little bit crazy.
