It's just, you gotta pay your dues if you want to sing the blues. Not that I've never paid dues in my life, but I just paid a lot in the last couple of years. What can I say? It just gives your songs a whole lot more legitimacy. Or it causes you to write better songs or something, I don't know.

We don't want to overstay our welcome. If we were gonna go on tour next summer, for example, we feel under a little pressure to record a record or something.

Bob Dylan is quite a songwriter, and a great singer and musician. I won't bother with comparing myself to him, but I will say that I heard his records at a very young age and I still listen to all his records.

I can't tap into the naive, spastic playing that you do when you're young, although we occasionally still play too fast. But, overall, I'd say we're much more muscular and we can play a lot heavier and, for sure, lighter.

I couldn't have asked for a better setup, even if it is my former shadow looming once again over me. I was able to start working with a top-notch publicist. My name is fresh on every editor's brain just because of this Pixies thing.

They're so good. There are times when they're playing when it's just: 'Oh my gosh, these guys are like the Rolling Stones or something.' It's pretty stunning.

I'm just trying to record as much as I can, ... It's like a lifelong obsession with rock music that I've had since I was very young. I don't know what it is, but I like it and want to be around it and participate in it. It's the same today, a very youthful kind of feeling.

I will be meeting with Bruce and Frank Warren to discuss the future.

I did start down that path some time ago.