The autumn wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea with a rollicking song he sweeps along swaggering boisterously. His face is weather beaten, he wears a hooded sash with a silver hat about his head... The autumn wind is a Raider, pillaging just for fun.
Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy, and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.
I really, really like 'In Rainbows.' But I also really like 'OK Computer' as a sort of flipside to that. 'Reckoner' is my favorite, just my favorite Radiohead song. That, 'Idioteque,' and 'Pyramid Song' are my top three.
Ramones music has a Pavlovian effect on me - the song starts, and the world blurs around the sound.
To be 23 and riding the crest of a song sweeping the world country by country is to live an altered and wholly rarefied existence.
I like to know why a video has suddenly gone viral, why a song has broken, why a TV show is suddenly rating out of pattern... I'm pretty good at understanding why things are becoming popular.
I've had days when I go in my bedroom for 24 hours at a time. I call them my Cilla Black days, and they're literally black days. It's like the old Boomtown Rats song 'I Don't Like Mondays.' You just want to shut the whole day down.
It's so great when there's a catchy song that's fun and easy to listen to, but there's also a real artist behind it.
I'm not afraid to use my personal experiences and put them into a song. I think that's when you get the best stuff anyway, when it's real emotion.
I think that's what makes my music different from other artists in my lane is that I write every word that's on my album, and every word comes from a real experience or a real feeling that I've either experienced or felt. And I'm very particular about that, and I take a lot of pride in it, so you know if I say something on a song, I mean it.
To write a good song, an artist has to drawn from reality. There has to be some spark from realism that communicates a real feeling to someone else. You have to be real. Or you have to be a really good storyteller.
Money's really - you know, song writing, yes, there's money to be made and things like that. But really, when you talk about the real money, you talk about touring. No question.
'You Should Be Here' came from a real place. I lost my father... it was right when I was getting my record deal. There's just been so many moments that he hasn't been here for. It's kind of the reason I wrote the song.
What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.
I wrote my first song when I was four, and I played it at my piano recital.
I could probably recite just about every song that was on country radio between 1990 and 2000.
A Herd of Turtles' is the only song on 'Behold Electric Guitar' that is not strictly instrumental. But instead of singing, I am reciting a poem. My poem is about overcoming challenges.
You have record companies that sign acts that they think are great, and then they never do anything. Acts that they don't think are really going to do much end up having a career. I don't think anyone really knows what it is that drives somebody to get on their computer and want to download a song.
I am in a business that's built on record sales and reputation and how your single is doing and where your song is on iTunes. But the kind of music that I do comes from my beliefs.
In whichever way my music can get out there, I'm just like, 'Sure.' It's also through the TV synch licenses that I've been surviving. I don't really make money through record sales. I used to be really picky: 'No, I don't want it to be the song of a commercial,' but nowadays it's what you need to do to get the song out as much as you can.
