Musician

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

To me, creative work is labor, like any other kind of labor. It's got value, and it takes your time, and it's useful to people, depending.

To me, everything is always new. People involved in my personal life make fun of me a lot for not being jaded.

At my high school, there were always kids carrying acoustic guitars around, which is why I named my band the Mountain Goats. I didn't want to seem like one of those guys who brought his guitar to the party whether you asked him to or not.

My strongest hope is for a cameo as a band playing in a club visited by the detectives on 'Law & Order: SVU' during the course of an investigation, maybe during sound check, or something, so they can force us to stop playing while they question the sound guy.

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 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 benefit.

Adulthood is interesting to adults. But I would never want to write about stuff I don't feel everybody can connect to.

I wrote 'Lakeside View Apartment Suites' with Roman in my arms. He was about a month old. I was playing left-handed and finally handed him over. On the demo of it, you can hear him crying in the next room.

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

The better I get at writing songs, the harder it seems to be to relate to people. But when I get on stage, I'm extremely happy.

I think any real one-sheet for an album would say, 'Well, here's what I've been doing.' And that would be it.

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.

For years, I've written narrators who aren't gender-identified. When I do autobiographical stuff, that's different, obviously. But I've always tried to keep my songs as potentially not a man's thing.

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 Taipei and Kuala Lumpur.

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

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

I want to make sure people know I don't think I have any magic powers. I just have a story that I share.

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.

For me, fiction isn't very cathartic. It can be a broad, long catharsis, but it's a whole different thing - whereas music is physical. Essentially, it goes in through your ear. Fiction is cerebral, necessarily. It can do emotional stuff. But they don't really compare - not for me.