I'm 30. I'm not that young, right? I'm not, like, 24 or 22. I'm no longer in the phase of my life where I talk about everything as in the future. Like, I'm in the future.

If you're in a conversation with me, the last thing I'll probably say when I'm walking away is, 'Thank you and sorry.'

Bleachers comes from a different place. It's personal. It's just me putting myself out there as myself. It's very intense.

Sometimes it's really quick, and sometimes it's really long. There's no formula for writing songs.

I've gone down to the Jersey Shore every summer since I was born. It's like a second home, and Asbury Park is like the capital - it's the center of all of it. Musically, it's incredible.

It's a really natural thing: The people closest in your life are the people you want the first opinions from. At the end of the day, if you're not trying to impress those people first, then I think there's something wrong there.

Singles, whatever. But selling a million albums feels like an impossible thing to do.

I feel like I missed a whole period of my childhood because I had a bunch of stressful things happen to me when I was like 17, 18, when people usually feel the most free in life, like going to college and like anything is possible.

I need a hobby, and I don't want it to be basketball. I want it to be music. So to get away from music, I do other music.

I went to high school in New York City. So, I grew up in New Jersey my whole life, and I was watching all the people and all the kids that I met there become so jaded.

My parents had a house on the Jersey shore - I grew up right there, going down there every summer and living there. It is home for me.

Headlining can be sort of solitary - you're sort of on your own out there, and you start to feel for a change.

I've been touring through Texas since I was 15, on my first tour ever.

I want to come and play in cities and states where transgender citizens are not discriminated against, where there's no hateful bathroom bills at the shows where I'm going to be playing.

Anyone who is awake and aware knows that these quote-unquote bathroom bills or any legislation discriminating against LGBTQ citizens is horrible.

Human rights, no matter whom they affect, are something that should matter to all of us. It's always been a part of my life.

I just don't think it's good to be around too much creative energy other than your own.

At least for me, any time I've been in hotbeds of creativity, I got excited about something that wasn't coming from me.

I'm not trying to write a perfect record. I'm just trying to nail a moment in time.

I don't like having to be pushed into a box.

It's really easy to end up on the 'Daily Mail' if you put yourself in situations where you'll end up on the 'Daily Mail,' and it's really easy to not if you don't do that.

I feel very, very, very intent on only releasing things that I believe are fully worthy.

I'm gonna make my records, whether I release them as Bleachers or something else.

I always had the feeling that Bleachers is my soul.

When I work with other people, I don't have to do that - it's because I love to do it and I want to do it.

I love to stay at home and write.

I have all of these lives that I want the music to live, but at the end of the day, it's out there.

I don't really look back or forward too much. That's not to say I live in the moment, because I struggle with that as well.

Stepping away from Fun. was both exciting and terrifying.

The easiest way I can describe what makes a pop song a pop song is that it's a song you want to hear over and over.

What song have you played 10,000 times? It's probably not something basic. It's probably a song that validates your experience on Earth.

Once you understand that listeners want to be challenged, then you also understand that you can't take shortcuts.

I hear my songs being sung by females before I change them and make them into my voice.

I grew up on Raffi. That was my first impression of what a rock star was.

What could be better than working with people you love?

I remember immediately - immediately - feeling like, 'I don't want to play 'We Are Young' when I'm 35. I don't want to be defined by this.'

I'm a part of your life. You might not know it, but I am.

I love connected culture.

When you constantly revisit things, it's hard to know if you're freezing in time or if you're a brilliant adult who's working through it. I think about that in therapy, talking about the same things over and over again.

I love working with women.

I loved Interpol when they came out, but I never wanted to be in Interpol.

For 10 years, I had a band called Steel Train. We made three albums. We toured like crazy.

All of the guys I know from Jersey held onto this feeling of, 'We're always just working.'

I have no problem being mainstream. I grew up in the '90s when the mainstream was amazing.

The music business is filled with some nice people but a lot of strange people, so when you come across someone who's really genuine at an environment as bizarre as an awards show, you typically gravitate to them.

When artists get very big, they kind of forget that that's why they got big.

I don't really love roller coasters because I feel like they're filled with germs and make me nauseous.

People identify with other people for different reasons, and I personally am really comfortable around lesbians because, in some ways, we view women the same way.

I've never really identified with the way a typical alpha male views women. It's always an awkward forum for me to hang out with another guy and talk about girls, because I can't really find a way to fit in.

I think what probably happens when you put two awkward/clunky people together is that their awkward/clunky world seems like a normal world.