“Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.”
“What's funny in 'The Mayor of MacDougal Street' is how Dave Van Ronk talks a lot about the time and how exciting it was and how electric it was.”
“When I came up to New York to do a play, I passed by Julliard, and I was like, 'Oh I heard of this place.' I applied, and ended up getting in.”
“When I moved to New York, I had to let my band know that I couldn't play anymore, and that was difficult to leave that behind.”
“You can't try to be authentic. You either are or you aren't.”
“You watch 'Whale Rider,' and I defy you to not get teary-eyed at the end there.”
“I was in bands, but they were punk bands, and you plug in the guitars, you turn them up really loud, you've got four or five other people on stage with you, you've got some protection from when they throw lighters. You can always hide behind the lead singer or the bass player.”
“I was never much of a singer. I was terrible. It's embarrassing: I was trying to sound like everybody else. I went through a big Cure phase, so I was trying to do that kind of dramatic voice.”
“Anybody who dedicates himself to exploring the human condition, there's always a detached eye that's watching. In any situation, a little part of me is observing it, to see if there are any raw materials to create something else later.”
“Being someone with Latin roots, so many doors are constantly closed for you because people put you in a category, and the thing I've always wanted to avoid is categorisation.”