I was writing poetry, and the Mountain Goats was an outgrowth of that.

I always assumed people wanted to hear me tell stories, but then I had ‘The Sunset Tree.’ It turned out, my own stories were the ones that registered with people the hardest.

People like to say how much they like stuff, but with ‘The Sunset Tree,’ people shared stories about what it meant for them. And that stuff’s so humbling and amazing.

Dark, primitive magic. Swords Against Death.

One of the great things about wrestling is how it interrogates this silly idea that you have one authentic self.

I think there are some writers – like, if you read Kerouac, I think you probably need to take a little break before you sit down to the typewriter because he’s the type of writer...

Wrestling is like any form of drama or pretty much any form of entertainment – some people understand this about forms of entertainment really intuitively when they’re younger, and others would have to be really...

I always worry that I’m a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don’t have exhaustive knowledge of much.

Touring is just not normal for me. My personality is to never ever talk to people if I can help it.

It’s like fiction – the fact that somebody’s telling you a story about people who didn’t exist doesn’t make the experience of the story any less real in your heart and mind. You go through...

I watched ‘Fame,’ and I just love the choreography. It just gives me a place to be in another zone.

I am permanently a student of people who make great songs, but besides sort of learning by absorption, I just love listening to music, hearing what’s going on, hearing new things or new old things.

Readings are more like weaving a tapestry. Possibly people are getting a cathartic release – but music is physical. Music pummels you. It’s got a beat; it’s loud. Whereas this is more cerebral.

I wish they’d conduct a national poll to find out who feels out of place and who doesn’t. Just to get the numbers, you know? To get a feel for how many of us there...

One or two people have named their children after characters in my songs. That’s pretty intense.

I think wrestling is the one that presents theater for people who want to see some theater but don’t necessarily have to dress up or be quiet while they’re watching.

You get this really cool groove when you’re playing just piano, bass, and drums where everyone’s sort of feeling each other’s space, which is the only way to put it, but it really is true,...

I don’t have a favorite drink. I don’t do favorites of anything, practically.

When I’m writing a song, I’m just making stuff up as I go along.

Life is entirely unthinkable without any of the creative arts, and they’re all a continuum – the force in question is creativity, not its mode of expression.

I write for a lot of places, so I’m on a lot of promo lists.

I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun. But I really love Durham more than any place I’ve ever been; some small towns can...

Something I’ve learned being in this industry for so long is that if you want to work with somebody, call them up. Very few musicians have any illusions about genre boundaries. They are useful descriptive...

You always feel like your 18-year-old self in some sense. And that’s what walking through New York on a June evening feels like – you feel like it’s Friday, and you’re 17 years old.

People do all sorts of things impulsively and follow those impulses into strange places.

I think youth will always be connected to the strongest music at the time because… I don’t want to use the word ‘tribal,’ but there was this sort of familial affiliation that people would feel...

You want the song to be at least at the same level of goodness throughout. Whereas with something you’re doing live, a song dips and rises and that can actually be worked to the song’s...

I don’t sit down and say I’m going to write a song about this or that. They are never mapped out.

When you’re born into a showbiz family, the deck is stacked against you.

Metal has its own code of cool, but it’s not really trying to be cool. And that was very refreshing to me, that metal is very much about expressing something that seems awesome to you...

I’d played with Jon Wurster as a duo just for a lark.

I got a promo of ‘Nichts Muss’ in what would have been 2002 or 2003 and fell totally in love with it after listening to it on an airplane that took me to Australia via...

Sometimes I’ll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I’ll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story...

A band’s first album’s usually not great. When you made the first album, you had a day job and you were still trying to be serious about it.

People think of me as a nice person because, I think, I have grown into a nice person.

I think, taking too long to work on a record, you sort of lose some of the feeling, so I write as fast as I can; it’s just this manic phase where I’m by myself...

Younger songwriters will ask me, ‘What did you do?’ And it’s like, ‘Well, I worked a day job, and I didn’t stake anything. I didn’t quit my day job. I didn’t have any hopes at...

I love Joan Didion, but I love her writing. I don’t think meeting her could solve my problems or make me understand the world better.

Wrestling’s a form of expression, and it expresses vastness.

Metal isn’t necessarily aggressive. There’s metal that’s contemplative, there’s metal that’s sad, and there’s metal that’s exuberant. No genre is limited in what it can express.

I’ve written a lot about southern California, but I don’t use the same characters. Leave the people in the songs in the songs, is my philosophy.

I hang out and sign records for an hour or two hours every night, and I like to hear as many people’s stories as I can, because if somebody wants to share their story with...

That’s what I used to enjoy so much: Bringing a record home, having it arrive in the mailbox. Having the whole experience of hearing it as you’re holding it and looking at it and reading...

A book is a journey: It’s a thing you agree to go on with somebody, and I think every reader’s experience of a book is going to be different.

Sometimes I do ‘So Desperate’ solo in the middle of the set. I really love to sing that song.

I try not to write songs in which men glamorize their own need for approval from women. That’s kinda a bogus way to go out. But I try to do this quietly. I’m not about...

Your creativity before it gets formed into words and songs is the actual substance. No one else can see it, right? Unless you give it the shape of a song or a painting or whatever.

I still can’t manage to keep a journal, and people have been telling me to since the fourth grade.

Your intelligence doesn’t override your desire to destroy yourself.

More and more, I enjoy hearing people who are good at their instruments and who’ve found a distinctive voice. In death metal, a lot of guys are Eddie Van Halen disciples, but they take his...