Musician

I just try to tell a story rather than present an open diary to the world.

With Fountains of Wayne, after 'Stacy's Mom' happened, we started making a little bit more money and getting a little bit more known.

When you're writing for a show, you're writing part of the script. You have to tell the story.

I don't know if there's a particular project, but one movie that I was really disappointed I didn't get to work on was Judd Apatow's 'Walk Hard.'

The Mall Of America, outside Minneapolis, is just a mall. Yeah, it's big. So, like, instead of your typical 12 Starbucks, there are 30.

I just like to stay busy, and I like to work with interesting people.

Most of the jobs I've gotten are from people calling me. I don't actively solicit a lot of work like that, but maybe I should.

Saxon, if you are unfamiliar, is a British heavy-metal band that has been around since the mid-'70s and was in no small part the inspiration for Spinal Tap.

I think people sometimes confuse 'catchy' with something that should automatically be a hit in today's world. I mean, obviously we write a lot of stuff that's catchy, that sticks in your head. But that doesn't necessarily mean that middle-school kids are going to want to listen to a song about a lawyer or a Subaru or whatever.

The Ting Tings have been a huge hit in my family. I have two young daughters, and both of them love that record, so I pretty much have to listen to that ten times a day.

Coachella is a magnet for music-biz luminaries such as Tara Reid, Paris Hilton, and Cameron Diaz.

I think people sometimes confuse 'catchy' with something that should automatically be a hit in today's world. I mean, obviously we write a lot of stuff that's catchy, that sticks in your head. But that doesn't necessarily mean that middle-school kids are going to want to listen to a song about a lawyer or a Subaru or whatever.

What should a song be about? It's a trick question for songwriters because lots of amazing songs aren't 'about' anything. Or, at least, they're not about anything that's obvious or logical.

I've never really had the desire to be a front person or a solo artist. I don't really create that much of a hierarchy in my mind.

With Fountains Of Wayne, I almost always start with lyrics - maybe not the entire lyric, but I almost always need a couplet or something, and then I work from there. With Ivy, it's much more about the atmosphere and the vibe.

As a writer, I find it very satisfying when a lyric suddenly ties together more neatly than you expected it to. But for the listener, hearing a good lyric is not generally as exciting as hearing a great beat or a great riff or a great melody or even a distinctive singing voice for the first time.

With the TV stuff, we usually hand in final, finished tracks. The turnaround time is so tight that there's no time to demo anything; you just do it.

In the '80s, they were using an awful lot of technology but hadn't really figured out how it worked yet... You had these really great, simple pop songs turned into these gigantic overproductions.

A band can define their own success.

It's always been my philosophy to keep a lot of balls in the air. With music, most things don't pan out, so you try to increase your odds by being involved with a million things at once.