I do love the Nat King Cole stuff, the classic Christmas records. There's something about putting those records on and hearing his voice at Christmastime that brings back a lot of great memories of growing up.

I was attracted to black music for the same reason that I loved those old Irish ballads. Both were social statements of sorts, and both were indigenous to their respective cultures: Ireland, where my father had grown up, and towns like St. Louis along the Mississippi River, where I was growing up.

I played so many clubs growing up, and back in that period, in the '60s, we'd play, like, four, five sets a night.

Throughout my career, there has always been an element of surprise. Sometimes there are moments of disappointment; sometimes there are moments of surprising success.

Among the mysteries of the creative ego is how the transcendence of what artists do is their own response to the darkness of who they are, and the same personal darkness that is at odds with the art is what propels artists to the light of what they create.

The marketing department is really an important part of getting an animated film to work. If the people running it are used to selling live action films and the hard rock music and the sex and all those things... Anything outside that, they just don't know what to do with it.

I had art as a major, along with English, French and History. I had dance, modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry, which I eventually got published.

In Strapping, I had experimented with a creative catharsis under the assumption that art doesn't need to be accountable for itself, but I found out in very practical ways that you are accountable for everything you say. Everything you write, everything you do becomes not only your identity but your world resonates with it.