Alex Ebert

It's not that I want to necessarily avoid my darker moments, but I don't capitalize them and put a crown on them and tote them around as the answer anymore.

In a place like the Greek Theater in L.A., to try and create a close connection with the audience seems almost antithetical to the architecture of the building.

Berlin would be a great place to have no cell phone, I think. Especially if you were able to live in a central location.

I pay attention when the Academy Awards come around. I haven't watched them in a while, but I used to watch them religiously when I was a kid.

From about 5 years old on, I was very contemplative and started to become constantly filled with nostalgia for the present moment and the feeling that it's always fleeting.

To be lost is as legitimate a part of your process as being found.

I've always been around musicians and always been the songwriter who doesn't end up playing the music.

I think Edward Sharpe's music is counter-cultural music in the strangest sense where you have a time now where love, optimism, hope and community are uncool and not part of the mainstream culture.

The album is a thing that you can hang out with between shows. I think that it's really nice to give people something they can enjoy in a private situation or walking around, just as the soundtrack of their lives.

For the better part of my life, I was always trying to manufacture somehow what I would consider 'living.' Because I grew up sort of upper-middle class and I didn't relate so much to that as a life, and I wanted to really find 'living.'

Hip hop was definitely, far and away, the primary influence for at least 10 years of my life. From about 7 or 8 on till about 15 or 16, that's all I listened to.

There are many examples of great songs that become more famous when they are covered.