Within Istanbul, there's a ton of people who are totally hip - like, the hippest people you could ever meet.

The Music Machine is my favorite rock band ever.

Music doesn't always bring me to tears; if I hear 'Love' by John Lennon at a vulnerable moment, it will bring me to tears.

The minute we first started recording 'Defend Yourself,' I thought, 'Yeah. We're going to have to deal with a really terrible review from Pitchfork for this record.'

I don't want to meet anybody famous, usually.

There are very few songs I really hate.

NYC is a wonderland full of passionate music fans. Once I got over being intimidated by rock critics and finicky hipsters, I realized that NYC was a great place to play.

Simplicity is at the core of Sebadoh.

I just write... I follow the melodies that I can't forget/the ones that pop up in my brain the most.

I have to focus and keep things together as much as anyone with a real job... It's just that I know, from experience, that the more fun I have doing something that the more successful it will be.

When I first started writing songs, I did play with my fingers, and I had these kind of weird strums. There's, like, three or four strumming patterns that seemed kind of unique to me.

Some people play steel string beautifully, but I'm not exactly a world-class picker.

'One Part Lullaby.' It was our big major-label record. People reference it quite a bit, but it did absolutely nothing. It's like the 'Kids' soundtrack. It did nothing. It didn't start anything for me.

I hear people telling me a lot that the production of that particular record - 'One Part Lullaby' - really influenced them. I'm like, 'What? We were dropped from the label after that!'

Early on, I really liked the idea of being confrontational. I loved the idea of making songs that made people really uncomfortable.

It's cool to think about nursing, because a lot of people decide to go into it later in their lives. I could slip into school to be an LPN or an RN as a middle-aged man, and it wouldn't be unusual.

I've managed to alienate most of what would be considered the core audience that I'm supposed to have had.

Young bands are so angry. There are young bands that are so incredibly successful, getting incredible reviews, and they are totally angry.

I've learned by experience that, if I get too clever with lyrics, or if I'm not totally embodying my own wants and needs in the songs, I can't remember them.

Most of the times that I've written break-up songs, it's been different because I was always trying to get back to something: get back to a situation or talk my way or sing my way back into the relationship.

I really don't have a method. I gravitate towards the organic/acoustic, but I still often complete songs musically before attempting to find the lyric.

I like to collaborate with other people for studio recordings because I believe collaboration, in any form, makes music better.

I'm the haphazard engineer of my own music.

It's kind of crazy how music helped me overcome the anxieties that I have.