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I've got an amazing family. My wife is really smart. She's guided me the whole way. With children, you see them grow up, so it's like you're forever young. They are totally innocent and so unjaded. Watching them grow up makes you go through it again yourself.
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I like to laugh at dark things.
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I'm the kind of person who will set time aside to do something and then do everything but that thing.
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I think that I identify with Philadelphia for a lot of reasons. Without even thinking about it, I called myself 'Philly's Constant Hitmaker' when I first got a MySpace, before I had any real hits. It was kind of just a funny slogan, basically lifted from the Rolling Stones' first album, 'England's Newest Hit Makers.'
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I proved myself with 'Smoke Ring.' It was me maturing. I made a good pop record.
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Love is intense, and sadness is intense.
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Philly's busy enough. There are tons of record stores and record-head friends and plenty of D.I.Y. shows. It's a place where people pass through and bands don't usually skip on tour. There are lots of music resources, but it's not too over the top.
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I've been known to just pass out instantaneously, like, anywhere.
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Cigarettes are the worst thing in the world for you.
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I feel like if you sit down and have an assistant engineer and a producer in a top-notch studio and everyone sets up all the mikes perfect, all of a sudden it's really hard to live that melancholy song. It's hard to really live it in the moment.
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I definitely have relapses of stress. Most human beings are like that. But I think, ultimately, music is a therapeutic situation. Once you start playing, it all just gets resolved.
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I feel like when I say something sad, I mean it.
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That's one of my favorite Matador records: Cat Power, 'You Are Free.'
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'Smoke Ring' was a downer, then 'Wakin' was an upturn.
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Even when I haven't played in a while, I can sit down and start with a chord, and just drop into it. It's like this tunnel I go into. The zone is where I want to live.
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If I sit in the same square room and work on something too long, I feel like you just go mad.
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I just try to make as much money as possible. However I can do it. With as much integrity as I can have.
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If somebody else wanted to do a song for McDonald's, that's up to them. I wouldn't do something like that, but whatever.
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I had a really fun time working with the HARRYS guys and their whole crew.
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That Yo La Tengo record, 'Painful,' has got some real awesome, noisy, mellow heartbreakers.
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It was just the next logical step from making succinct pop songs. What do you do after that? You make pop songs that are longer and more epic, that push the envelope. Imagine your favourite song, or something that you play over and over in the car, except that you don't have to start it over as much.
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I benefit from a change of scenery; it's always inspiring.
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I write a lot when I'm feeling bummed, but other times, you get locked in, and it's totally personal. If you're really low and writing, you're not thinking about anybody at all.
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I'm always working on music.