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.

There's a stigma attached to 'pop music,' like it's a taboo word. It used to make my skin crawl when people said it, and I'd say, 'I'm not a pop star! I want to be a respected musician!' But I think people have changed the way they think about it.

With every milestone that I've come across, there's always been a little note at the bottom that's said, 'Don't worry, there's another milestone coming up.'

Every single pair of trousers I own has a plectrum in it.

I've purposely made my music to be challenging and different. There's some electronics, R&B, blues, Motown, country, jazz and lots of soul.

My mum would play Stevie Wonder around the house, and I remember just loving the songs and feeling so blown away by how much was going on.

Ever since I was a little kid, my ears and my hands would talk to each other very well, so I could pick up instruments quite easily.

I didn't do myself any favours. I would be resentful of my own ideas even before I'd said them out loud. But music was always the most consistent and peaceful thing for me. So I taught myself to be my harshest critic rather than just a mean voice in the back of my head.

Lyrics are really, really hard, I think, or at least they're really hard for me. Some people can channel lyrics faster. I find them very hard to find, so because of it, they take me a long time, and I really think about them.

Genre hopping is something I intend to do, and I intend to do it forever and ever because I think genres are boring.

I would go to school and try to talk to my mates about music and playing instruments and stuff, and they would turn around and go, 'What're you talking about? Shut up.' And I realised that I was the weird one.

As a kid, I could just pick up melody and harmony instinctively, and that's why I can play lots of instruments.

With the BBC Sound list, it's just humbling even being put aside those other musicians - people like Alicia Kava, who I am a huge fan of.

I'm always working on new stuff.

I'm just here to do the best that I can do with the music that I make, and I'm not making it for any other reason than I feel like I have to. These ideas have to be created because they're in me, and if I leave them in my head, I'll go crazy.

I find myself working ten steps ahead of where I actually am on my laptop or keyboard, but I know what the ten steps are. I just haven't got to them yet.

It's difficult sometimes to go and see a show and enjoy it and not go and see a show and critique it.

The thing that was most constant when I was growing up was just complete support and adoration from my parents.

I remember listening to 'Songs In The Key Of Life' as a kid. Stevie Wonder has an ability to manipulate pop into something globally obtainable. Anyone can listen and enjoy it because there's something for everyone. That woke me up to the possibilities of pop music.