I don't know if embarrassed is the right word, about pop, but I prefer the abstract and the distorted in music. And I keep writing these proper melodies and harmonies, and they're the bits that get thrown out of the records! And I have quite a collection.

I kept saying I got sick of listening to people's productions, like people who had no ideas, no songs, nothing to say but could still con people's ears into thinking those songs were there by the application of production. I kind of wanted my record a little more honest than that: Well, this is us. We put a microphone on it. Here it is.

I think it's essential to make new music now, and to try and make epic records now, and not rely on what happened in the past.

When it's a pop song, I don't really want to do pop songs, but they exist and sort of come out by accident.

My songs get to a stage where they resist any further change, you know? And that's kind of where they are, short of re-recording or starting again. That's kind of where it's gonna be.

I just think there's an awful part of rock-'n-roll music where people kind of pretend they're young all their lives, you know? And they kind of live off past glories. Especially now there's kind of a trend where people are performing only their old albums, in their entirety, beginning to end.