The World's Fair was the precursor to theme parks like Disneyworld, and the really sort of cheap, superficial promotional architecture that you see everywhere in the U.S. I think there's a danger when you start creating a civilisation that isn't meant to last.

I'd like to do a record that doesn't even reference actual places. Because I think it's kind of an open-ended concept. It doesn't have to be taken so literally.

I think I get a lot of ideas from when I was a kid, listening to Casey Kasem's 'American Top 40.'

Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It's a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like 'emo' or 'grunge'... or 'folk music.' I think that's just language itself, trying to understand the mysteries of the world.

Audacity is central to everything I do. A lot of times I think my work is about just seeing if I can get away with it.

You know, I don't think my music is important, I don't think it's changing the world, I don't think it's art. I just think it's music. It is what it is.