In an ideal world, records would be filed in record stores by title rather than by artist, as they are in video stores. I think it’s better to identify with the work rather than the...

I need to go someplace faraway that doesn’t have telephones and doesn’t have a record player and doesn’t have movie theaters and people walking down the street in order to not do anything.

I get a lot out of a show when I know that I don’t know anyone in the audience and don’t think the audience knows much about the music.

The songs are not meant to be real life. They’re meant to have a psychic – rather than a factual – bearing on the listener. It’s rare that a song grounded in reality moves me...

I’d like my records to reach as many people as possible, but I’m also thinking in terms of how I can keep from getting jaded or unhappy with the process.

It’s nice to be able to backtrack and not be embarrassed by the music you used to listen to.

The first music I bought when I was nine or 10 was pop music from the ’50s and ’60s, like The Everly Bros., Elvis, Del Shannon, The Flamingos, The Platters, whatever I could get my...