It would be a horrible business, a horrible sort of culture if you didn't have the candy pop as well as the real hard-hitting stuff. And I love some pop music.

Music is politics - it always has been and it always will be.

I'm already 30! It doesn't really feel like a landmark. When I started out, my aim was to keep making records. Just because I've reached the 10th doesn't mean I'm going to rest on my laurels now!

One of the joys of writing music is making your own mark. Study other stuff, immerse yourself in music and then tell your own truth.

Sometimes you definitely need to just let go. You need to sort of forget everything.

I think the US and the UK are gradually growing closer together in a lot of ways. They're inextricably linked.

I would always consider myself to be political with a small "p," although it makes me mad when people say politics should be kept out of music.

My generation in the UK, they're very apathetic, a lot of them.

If you're a Brit you kinda get used to people being cold and aloof and just generally arrogant - particularly musicians. (Compared to Londoners New Yorkers are a walk in the park!)

I want to be accessible to a certain type of person who wants to walk around with their eyes open, or at least is open to the idea of change.

I faced the "dead lion" courageously but will definitely run if I meet a roaring one...

When you are nearer, you will understand how much your eyesight is deceived by distance. Therefore, push yourself a little harder.

I was in three academic clubs, a huge book worm and the teacher's pet. I was kind of an easy target for bullies.

Could you be loved and be loved?

I worked a lot in Chicago's theater scene as a fight choreographer. And so I do have a lot of experience in stage combat and also in Kabuki dance and Kabuki theater.

Real numbers are good if you add the word 'random'.

The things that I draw on, and the world that I feel part of, aren't particularly youth culture.

In my lifetime I've been to bed with men, women, and odd pieces of furniture.

Modern American liberalism is nothing but the socialism too stupid to recognize itself in the mirror.

A new world is only a new mind.