Metal isn't necessarily aggressive. There's metal that's contemplative, there's metal that's sad, and there's metal that's exuberant. No genre is limited in what it can express.

Your intelligence doesn't override your desire to destroy yourself.

I think 'The Sunset Tree' is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.

Opera combines pretty basic theater and poetry, but the storyline itself is actually quite poetic and, after some digital research, taking that actual content and seeing it as undeniably poetic.

I was writing poetry, and the Mountain Goats was an outgrowth of that.

My father would tell me if I wasn't writing in meter verse, it wasn't poetry.

Most of my interests in terms of writing are dark, so it's discordant how much I try to lock into the vibe of wherever I'm at. Inhabiting the life of the imagination is the nature of survival strategy - you build yourself little worlds to enjoy.