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" Finger-picking, in general, is a hypnotic thing. I feel like I'm more A.D.D. all the time, so the music has to be hypnotic. "

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" After I play a gig, I'm like a different person: I have superhuman strength. "

" Everybody goes up and down throughout their lives. "

" I do a lot of things, and I'll get excited about them - maybe it'll be a song in a movie - and then it comes out, and you're like, 'Aww, that was cool, but it wasn't quite as big a deal as I thought it would be.' "

" When I was a teenager, I was mostly getting tapes and CDs, and somebody hipped me to the fact that you can get things on vinyl that are not necessarily available on any other fomat. "

" I proved myself with 'Smoke Ring.' It was me maturing. I made a good pop record. "

" My family was always playing music; I always enjoyed it. My cousin, who is a little older than me, he started playing music, so I wanted to, also. I asked my dad for a guitar, and he got me a banjo, so that was my introduction to playing. I played it like a guitar. I had a few lessons, learned out a few chords, and figured it out right away. "

" I've developed this routine at home. I wait for the kids to go to bed; then my wife falls asleep. Then, it's dark and quiet enough for me to work on songs. "

" I'll know when a song's really awesome, for sure, and I get super stoked, and I'm so high when I'm hearing it back, but then you sit with the record forever. You're mixing it, and you can really just over-think everything. "

" The last blue collar job I had, I was 29. Even 'Childish Prodigy,' I had a day job that whole time. Those early ones, they feel like psychedelic, blue collar records. Especially 'God Is Saying This to You,' there's such urgency in that album. "

" I think if you just travel in general, it allows you to step outside of yourself and whatever you're familiar with. "

" I had a wacky job driving a forklift for an air freight company. That was the worst. "

" 'Smoke Ring' was a downer, then 'Wakin' was an upturn. "

" My favorite kind of song is the most beautiful song that you love so much and it's so good it makes you want to cry a little bit. Any jam can sound like that on a certain day. "

" My cousin used to make fun of me for liking stuff like C+C Music Factory. I didn't have any tapes; I just liked their song on the radio. We liked that because that was what we had access to. "

" I've always been a music fan. I played trumpet. When I was in 4th grade, we were getting demos from the music teacher about different instruments we could play, and I said I wanted to play the trumpet right away. It was easy: it just had three valves. "

" I'm obsessive when I get an idea in my head. "

" I actually often write about writing music and being in that zone. "

" I definitely have relapses of stress. Most human beings are like that. But I think, ultimately, music is a therapeutic situation. Once you start playing, it all just gets resolved. "

" I really like Cold Cave. "

" I'm not cynical, but the reality is that life is mortal. Terrible, sad things happen. Everybody loses friends and family. I'll be on tour and get really scared if my wife won't answer her phone within one minute. I'm sensitive. "

" I feel like if you sit down and have an assistant engineer and a producer in a top-notch studio and everyone sets up all the mikes perfect, all of a sudden it's really hard to live that melancholy song. It's hard to really live it in the moment. "

" Influence is all osmosis. "

" I'm just used to the L.A. music life. "

" Even when I played in little league as a kid, I liked making friends, but I didn't want to be there, really. "

" People can have their punk ideals, but I don't really care about that kind of thing. "

" My music has to be funny and sad and happy and loving; it's gotta have it all. When somebody's just too dark all the time, it's just drama. Or if somebody's too funny? Well, I like being too funny sometimes. "

" All of my surroundings influence my songwriting. It's autobiographical, although I leave enough space so it's relatable. "

" I feel like when I say something sad, I mean it. "

" There's so many ways you can play one chord progression that the repetition isn't ever exactly the same. "

" I find that I get nervous before I play. Even sound checks can give me anxiety and screw with my mind. But as long as I can play a little acoustic guitar backstage if I'm feeling nervous, so I don't have to walk in there cold turkey, I'll be fine. "