If you have a lot of textural stuff happening in music you get called shoegaze, or whatever, and then it becomes about the sound and not about the songs.
I think that from the beginning of me making music, I always had it in my mind to combine things that I like to listen to in a way that I had never heard before.
I love people like Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks and David Bowie - people that project themselves as characters and that contextualizes the music.
There's nothing more fun than feeling frequencies and learning about equipment - everybody should do that. But if you're going to put your heart into an album and you want to give it to the world and add to the conversation, I think it's really important to take your time.
I didn't want to make a record that's just drones or completely experimental. A lot of the time bands that make this psychedelic style of music are just a bunch of dudes hanging out together and jamming.
My job is to file things! I'm not going to be like, "Mr. Jacobsen from Oakland, California" - just listing his problems, like a rap.
I saw a lot of drugs and strange things when I was younger, but I also think it was a positive experience because I was surrounded by these really interesting, beautiful people that were trying to get their lives back on track.
I lived with my godmother and mother in New Zealand until I was seven. They were both Jungian psychologists and had a homeless shelter for street gang members in New Zealand.
The visual side of being a performer or in a band is, to me, as important as the music. I know not everyone shares that same opinion, but when I'm writing songs or working on lyrics or coming up with an idea, I think about videos as I'm in the studio. If I had all the money in the world, I would have the most amazing videos ever, you know? You're saying grandiose, and big; if the song warrants it, I try to push the visuals as far as I can.
I think every artist that you like, or even artists that have defined their own times, they're definitely looking to the past as a starting place. It's just about how you infuse your own personality, your own message, and your own ideas into it. The record is supposed to be really sensual and sexy.
I'm very much into collaboration. I think that collaboration is the road to making something great. I respect artists that are more autocrats and are in control of their own projects, but it's not really my style. I've always had that partnership.
In the beginning I had a lot of self-imposed limitations as far as production and instrumentation. It was really inspiring for us at the time, because those limitations allowed us to push ourselves as songwriters and gave us a strong sound that people could recognize as ours, like wearing a leather jacket every day. A uniform. They know it's you - and that's great - but my original intention wasn't to be a shoegaze band or to be derivative of one sound.
It's really cool what you can do with a guitar and a Fender Twin and a space echo.
