"I just recently saw Slacker, actually, within maybe the last year and a half. It definitely marked a certain bracket of youth at that time—and more specifically, Austin. But I love the way he captured this lackadaisical, lethargic driftiness, and conversations and characters and life. I love that trick where people are just talking and walking down the street, and then suddenly someone walks out to get something from the mailbox or something and the camera just stays with them and it becomes their story for a moment. That structure totally fascinated me. Even when I was in Seattle in the ’90s, that idea of people just hanging out, and you don’t even know what you’re doing, you’re just spending time with people and talking philosophy, but it’s not really going anywhere. You’re just talking about things to talk about things, and I really identified with that. I’m surprised I didn’t see it back then. I’ve walked around Austin and done nothing and just had some random conversations with strangers and that spirit still exists there, to a certain extent. It’s not what people who are productive members of society would say is a good way to spend time, but I actually think nowadays that’s kind of a premium. I would like more of that in my life at this point, because just the overstimulation and how much information is pouring in constantly is ridiculous and also kind of false. There’s this sense of urgency and importance that we have with time. And a lot of it has to do with technology and the culture that builds around that. But I think a movie like Slacker is hard for people to watch these days. Their attention spans are much shorter, and Slacker is the antithesis. Many of the movies in the Criterion Collection are atmospheric, and sometimes people are like, “I don’t know what to do with this.” But to relax into it and use that as an example of another way of existing, I think, is important. So Slacker both reminded me of a time period and also kind of reminded me of the importance of that way of being."

"Look at it this way: The Twilight Zone is your memories of growing up, of learning to understand a certain language of cinematic storytelling that embraces fantastic twists of plot and character. Then, when you’re older, and it occurs to you to ask your parents what things were really like back in the day, the answer is Patterns, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and The Comedian, all written by Rod Serling. Of course, there’s more than Serling’s writing to love here: the immediacy of the productions and the adrenaline of the performances make for a perfect record of this incredibly pivotal era of storytelling."

"I've been a Cope fan since I was 15. He was a guy that nobody else was into, at least in my town - I'm from Temple, Texas. When you're that age and there's something you know about that you love obsessively and no one else is into it, it becomes a personal thing. I had all the records. It seemed like every time I would go down to Austin and went down to Sound Exchange there would always be a new Julian Cope record. Something older that I had never heard before or something new he was putting out that was not a main release but sort of a side release or he was releasing it itself. It sort of fed the obsession a bit. And then he was really into The 13 Floor Elevators and The 13 Floor Elevators were from Austin and then he put out a record called Droolian which had an Austin PO Box on the back and I didn't understand why that was. He wasn't here but somehow it had an Austin PO Box. I had a weird personal connections to those records. Out of all of his records, why pick Jehovahkill? I picked that one because that to me is the peak of his experimentation. It's also really great songwriting. It's a very, very kraut-influenced record. it's an expansive record. It was three sides. Not a full double album but it was three sides and on the fourth side you had an etching. He was always doing things like that. He was putting thought into it. He was the first artist I ever listened to that ran music in the run out grooves of the record. He wrote little inscriptions in the run out grooves of the record and there was all these hints and mysteries and all that stuff adds up to something. I'm not sure what right now but at the time I was just obsessed. I used to cover 'Upwards at 45 degrees' at solo shows, it's a great one. "