"There's a song on our new record called 'Us' that is sort of free-flowing, a little ambient, more of a soundscape than a song. For the most part we haven't gone there a lot. The only thing I would say is that I have a tendency to try and write songs where you stay in one mood the whole time. I've broken out of that a few times but that's my general tendency, to not add a bridge that changes the mood of the song. I want to get into the feeling of a song and stay there, and find a way to keep that interesting. And I think that's what is happening on records like this. It's all about a mood. This record makes me feel like it's, you know, I got into it when I was a sophomore in high school and I was going through my first real relationship. I still feel it listening to this record. It sounds like cold Temple Texas and falling in love for the first time. "

"My first memory of jamming with Mark Ronson was sitting and trying to figure out a song called 'You Know, You Know' from this album. We were just having a bit of fun, but we played that song for two hours straight. Of all the Mahavishnu records this is the least produced, there's only five of them if you include the violin player. This record really changed my life, it opened my brain musically. I found this through Bitches Brew [on which Mahavishnu Orchestra's John McGlaughlin plays guitar]. I'd read the Miles Davis autobiography Miles while I was in high school. I didn't know anything about his music, I'd just read the book because it was there, but it got me into listening to jazz, and once I'd started listening to Bitches Brew every day, that got me into listening to Mahavishnu. It was a direct line of following the breadcrumbs of who played on what album you get into all sorts of stuff, a spiderweb of musicians."

"When I saw Dazed and Confused, it would have been the early ’90s. I remember I was in Seattle at the time, and I went to the $1.50 movie theater we had, the UA 150, which no longer exists. I’ve always been a fan of time travel and I remember going to Dazed and Confused and being transported to that time period. I just lost it. I really felt what it was to be in that time period because, although I’d been a small kid, I definitely remember the ’70s. It’s mostly a feeling, but that movie took me right back there. It was amazing, everything about it. It was only one day, an intense day, but at that age one day can mean everything. The archetypes and the way the high school was filmed, it just felt really grounded. I grew up in Great Falls, Montana, and I related to the setting and the people. Sociologically, it just nails human behavior. There’s nothing absurd about it. And Ben Affleck plays an asshole, which he’s perfect for."

"I got really into reggae music in high school. Her vocals, her phrasing, everything taught me so much about how to put emphasis on different syllables, the way to punctuate things, making something sound extremely effortless when it wasn't. She's having fun and goofing around but I know that it takes a lot of work to make it sound like that. That was something that really appealed to me, wanting things to sound alive, effortless and fun while still touching on heavy issues. She just has a fucking great voice, as a singer she's just inspirational. I hadn't started doing anything yet, that was before college, I probably didn't own the album to be honest, I just taped stuff off the radio. I couldn't afford to buy a lot of records and my parents never had a lot of records. We'd buy singles at this place called Roxy Maxis for 99 cents. I taped all of the stuff on cassette so I'm sorry that I didn't pay for it."