It just takes me awhile to get comfortable in any situation.
— Lou Barlow
Sebadoh were always kind of the un-band. We never really lived in the same town.
Worry is a big part of my life. I definitely worry a lot.
All the issues you deal with get more complicated as you get older; it takes more focus to write songs that reflect what you've gone through.
I think people, just because of digital recording and how computers have become such an important part of our lives, I think the means to record music now is in more people's hands. It's a lot cheaper than it used to be.
'Brace the Wave' is an acoustic-electric record recorded with electricity on analog-digital and digitally-analog equipment.
I keep the tantrums to a minimum because people don't want to see that.
It's weird to say, but Sebadoh is kind of Dinosaur Jr. Jr. My two bandmates in the early Sebadoh era, Jason Lowenstein and Jeff Gaffney, were huge Dinosaur fans. They were very influenced by Dinosaur.
I just like it when I can understand things, and the simpler it is, the easier it is to understand.
A lot of times, when you record something, the album becomes less about the music and more technical.
Just from the beginning, I really liked playing around with tape recorders. And then, when I got into punk rock, I only really liked - the rawer it was, the more I was into it.
One thing about when I came back into Dinosaur that was really cool was that pretty much anybody that J. was working with who had a long-term relationship with J. were people I really liked and that I actually may have already known.
I'm fully aware, I've gotten terrible reviews my entire career. It's not a really big deal; it's something I can deal with.
Don Henley is real fallback for awfulness.
NYC is a wonderland full of passionate music fans. Once I got over being intimidated by rock critics and finicky hipsters, I realized that NYC was a great place to play.
Simplicity is at the core of Sebadoh.
My experience with Dino Jr. proved that making new music was a worthwhile pursuit.
I'm realizing I need to be in close proximity to everyone I'm working with because that - I don't know - it keeps me engaged.
I've put out a lot of stuff that just confused and alienated people: a huge chunk of songs that were verbal and musical challenges to myself, thoughts I was keeping myself busy with, nothing I had any intention of anybody grasping onto.
I'll figure something out by writing a song about it.
Maybe I can't write without painting myself into a corner first.
I enjoy Dinosaur for what it is. It's a unique band that has a unique chemistry.
I've been trying to cut down on caffeine because it seems to aggravate my middle-age-onset acne, but I'm too tired to care. I'm growing a beard to hide it.
If you make a strange, eccentric record - like the Velvet Underground's 'White Light/White Heat' - it takes on its own mood because it's less about a shrewd marketing plan; it's more about an individual emotion.
After discovering the Ramones, I discovered really crude ways to multi-track by taking another cassette recorder and plugging that into the eight-track, playing it back, so that as I was recording with the mic in my guitar, I could have another cassette player I had recorded on feeding into the recording.
I've never been good at playing live in front of people.
Within Istanbul, there's a ton of people who are totally hip - like, the hippest people you could ever meet.
I love Devo. There's nothing not to like.
I love making records, and part of really doing that and being happy about it is just that each time I've done something, I come to terms with what maybe is wrong with it, and then I move on to the next thing.
I like all the obnoxious Eagles stuff that just drives people crazy. I love 'Life In The Fast Lane' and 'Hotel California.'
There are very few songs I really hate.
To bicker over what could have been is silly.
I just write... I follow the melodies that I can't forget/the ones that pop up in my brain the most.
I'm a huge Zombies fan.
When you're in a band, it's kind of a big thing to be friends as well.
Everybody talking about being afraid of being boring is boring. You have to go for the real substance of life after awhile.
I put all my big revelations into songs when I was in my 20s; as you get older, revelations are harder to come by.
I think musicians naturally gravitate toward music that sounds real.
I have really severe tinnitus.
I have an aversion to taking care of my gear, a wayward manifestation of my punk ethos.
Some of my songs are positive and stuff, but some are about staring down at the ground and obsessing about stupid things, and it is teenage in a way.
At nine or ten, I was playing guitar in music class in my elementary school in Jackson, Michigan. They had a guitar class, and I played with ten of my classmates, and we did a little guitar orchestra for a school music.
I remember being inspired by this band Godflesh, actually. They were a really heavy metal band, really nihilistic.
The Music Machine is my favorite rock band ever.
Music doesn't always bring me to tears; if I hear 'Love' by John Lennon at a vulnerable moment, it will bring me to tears.
The minute we first started recording 'Defend Yourself,' I thought, 'Yeah. We're going to have to deal with a really terrible review from Pitchfork for this record.'
I don't want to meet anybody famous, usually.
I don't know what ontological means... I barely graduated high school, and I have never heard that word in conversation.
I went back and reread the Dinosaur chapter in 'Our Band Could Be Your Life,' and it was so depressing.
I have to focus and keep things together as much as anyone with a real job... It's just that I know, from experience, that the more fun I have doing something that the more successful it will be.
