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Even I would be unhappy if the final track did not sound good to me, which is why I stay in the loop with the music team till the song is ready.

I am never excited to play through a song all the way, because it can reveal more flaws that mean more work. For some reason, I always have an irrational fear that the song will never be finished.

By the end of the writing process, which is about 80 songs per album, I look at the material and think, what's going to make a difference in someone's life.

Obviously I try to make the best music that I can, but after about two years of making an album, you start to worry: 'Is it going to come out all right? Is it all going to sound churned out?'

It's easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.

Great songwriting will never die - it's in the DNA of music - but what's new and exciting is pairing that with new sounds that technology is enabling us to make.

There's a certain kind of motion and pacing that our music has, and this just doesn't have that. We just kind of rushed to the conclusion of most of the songs. I just would've preferred to done them over.

In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.

Presented with a song like Exit Music, It's impossible to know what to add without actually making it worse. How can you play along when It's already there?

I realized if I'm not really making an album, I don't have to be concerned about things like stylistic consistency, pacing, a coherent mood. All that stuff goes out the window.