I don't think of my music in terms of a career. I just want to get it out there and do it. I'm not manipulating my sound to be like anybody or trying to write to sound like anybody else.
A lot of musicians aren't proud; they'll do other work, just to be able to play music. I guess that's the way it's always going to be - musicians will have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.
I think I definitely learned how to structure songs, just from listening to a lot of 1960s, 1970s pop music, although I'm sure my mother's watchful eye had a lot to do with it.
As an artist, you dream about accumulating enough successful music to someday do just one greatest-hits album, but to reach the point where you're releasing your second collection of hits is beyond belief.
The less people that are on the stage, there's more drama. You start living the music with each individual. When you see a band with ten people on stage, just a huge ensemble, you don't know who's doing what.
Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).
Joining Modest Mouse was just consistent with what I used to do as a teenager: I followed where I thought I would make some interesting music.
I was just glad to meet somebody outside of my group of small town friends who was into music. Somebody else who had aspirations to do something more than sing at a record hop.
The most fun moments are being on the stage and seeing how the crowd reacts to your music. The energy of the crowd that makes you just want to go in and keep doing it and be a part of this forever.
You get to a point where it's like you can't really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.
Every writer writes in different ways, and so some write the music first, while others write the lyrics first, and some write while they are doing other things, and it is just nice to see how other writers are writing.
The medical nanobots in my novel 'Small Miracles' tap the energy sources that the patient's own body provides. That is, they can metabolize glycerol and glucose, just as the cells in our bodies do.
One morning, just like 9/11, there's going to be a disaster. I have yet to see the United Nations do anything effective with either Iran or North Korea.
I like to be comfortable. And I think men tend to dress more comfortably than ladies. They can just put on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and I like doing that. Comfort first.
We're really spoiled on 'Mad Men.' Lots of television actors use the down season to go out and get creatively fulfilled, but I feel the opposite. Anything else I get to do is just icing.
Women's liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.
Adult fantasy gets a bad name. You think of Xena - Warrior Princess. If you don't do it expensively, it becomes tacky and you end up just appealing to 45-year-old single men.
The problem is that for women, the average time is just over 14 minutes... men are left with about 12 minutes during which time they need to think of something to do!
I am a single mom and I'm the breadwinner and I have to work and I have to do these things and that's just the way it is. I don't think my son even knows any different.
I only do private room karaoke where it's just me and one of my closest girlfriends. My mom always said I could really belt songs out, and the Dixie Chicks feed that encouragement.
When I was in college, there were a couple years there where I was just not sure what to do, and it was actually my mom who suggested I take some journalism classes.
