I've had to try and find a way over the years of writing narratively that doesn't really require you to sit down and work out what the story's about. You're brought into a sort of sequence of images that have that emotional resonance, but it's kind of irrelevant what the actual story is. It's taken me maybe 13 albums or something to work that out.
The way I go about writing records is that I make a calendar date to start the new record, so I have nothing. I don't have a bunch of notes that I bring into the office, I start with nothing at all.
The way I take in the world is by seeing it; that is very much evident in the songs that I write.
The reason I've gotten into script-writing, which was accidental to begin with, was that I found it was a far more effective medium for violence. Which is something that I'd always written in songs, but the violence always sat strangely within a song. And I was always interested in the way in which you listen to murder ballads and things like that - these weird lines would kind of come out, like, I drug her by the hair or something - that sat weirdly in the song. Film seems to be a medium designed for betrayal and violence.
Writing is a necessary thing for me, just to keep myself level. It has beneficial effects on my life.
The problem with books, now that I've written one, is that the idea of adaptation is so much easier than sitting down to write something new.
Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.
Anything that I'm doing I'm writing specifically for a particular project.
