You definitely get more of a band feel to a song if you've been playing a song live a bunch.

I sometimes feel like I need to pinch myself. I feel extremely fortunate.

I love not being in charge of writing all the songs, and being the front person - the whole thing is cool.

I guess if we do enough shows and keep doing it long enough, then people will get the picture. But I can't really be bothered if they don't get the picture. That's not my concern.

I don't wanna keep playing the same song over and over again. It's just thinking about what's going to be the coolest thing to play on this particular show? The easiest thing to do is to play the single over and over again.

I'm never trying to be commercial or accessible, or saying let's do this weird stuff, but at the same time we gotta do this safe stuff.

The fastest I ever did that was when Kill the Moonlight came out after Girls Can Tell, and I remember both labels I was working with at the time saying, If this was any other period, I would probably say this is too fast, but because this is first time anybody has ever paid attention to Spoon, let's keep it on an upward trajectory.

Sometimes to get in the musical mood, I'll just turn on music really loud, or go drive around and listen to music, or learn a song that I really like on guitar or piano. That gets me in the right frame of mind to proceed.

I just think that's more exciting. When people used to cut records live, there were mistakes all the time that stayed in. It was part of the charm. You're kind of missing something if everything is all doctored-up and clinical. So when we hear a mistake that sounds interesting, we make a point to keep it.

Sometimes it's hard to hear criticism, or maybe let's try a different way. People's feelings get hurt.

I think there are lots of people that believe in rock 'n' roll. It's real easy. You just find some friends to play with and then you can feel it. I think that happens all the time. To be in a band and be playing in a room really loud, even if you never play a show, that feeling is really addictive and pure.

It's cool because you don't know how certain songs are going to go over until you play them live. For some reason, Shivers gets a huge response. I was not expecting it. When I start singing in the middle of Baby Get Worse, they go nuts. Just little surprises like that.

My problem was never with the major label, it was with the guy who we put our trust in and then wouldn't take my phone calls once we'd signed to a major label, who then quit.

There's no way to replicate a really great vocal sometimes.

It's hard being the guy that brings in a song, because you're very, you know, it can be something that you get too sensitive about.