We could say, like, "Americans are stupid," but that would be incredibly mean.
Usually on a TMBG record, there's at least one song that invokes death. Instead of that, there's a lot of songs about going to sleep.
Our songs remind you of songs you've never heard.
It's funny, because we've sort of been given the choice between being considered stupid and too smart.
There's a lot more self-hatred in the East. Which we consider "healthy self-hatred." And then there's this kind of sun worship thing which totally freaks us out here.
Well, it's a song about a nightlight, Dave. It might be a cute nightlight in some people's eyes, I don't know. That's pretty much the whole story of the song, though. It's about a nightlight.
If rocking means having a tattoo on your face and being a sexist pig then we're definitely afraid to rock! But there are different shades of rock, I think.
I think there's some sort of implication in that picture that the squid might win the fight against the whale, but I think what happens is that the whale eats the squid.
R: Did you know that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the National Bird?
JL: Yes, I did. I think that's a good idea. I think it's a shame that it wasn't, because it's really much better. Doesn't it seem like a better choice? It seems less arrogant. It's more of an American bird. The original idea of Uncle Sam was a scraggly, ugly guy, and generally, when we see him now, he's been cleaned up, and he's a handsome old guy. But the original idea was a crusty Yankee who was sort of scrappy. Really, the human equivalent to a turkey in a way. The eagle is much more of a fascist bird.
Maybe we'll revive The Stick--it wouldn't be much work, really, we'd just have to find a stick.
People are kind of screwed up sometimes.
A&O: Which is better, caffeine or sex?
JL: Well, they're different. I don't know if you can really compare them. It's sort of apples and oranges.
Originally, well. . . It seems like we've always had skulls in our work. We've probably had more visual skulls in the last two records. We've had pictures of skulls and songs about skulls, but you know this is one of these things. . . We put twenty songs on every record. There is a limited number of objects you can talk about.
The thing to bear in mind is when in a song we say "I killed my parents," we're not actually confessing to something in the song.
Well, this is embarrassing but I was really into Frank Zappa when I was in high school. I hate that because I really wish I could say that my favorite band was The Velvet Underground. Unfortunately I was heavily influenced by Frank Zappa.
I don't think we're quirky. We're not self-conscious enough. We're just trying to do something interesting.
We just think puppets are kinda cool. We like puppets. Some of our best friends are puppets. We're puppets.
People were horrified the first time we lit our skin on fire during a performance. Now that they've come to expect it, what's the point? The sad part is, we really enjoyed doing it.
For us, almost anything that's funny has a dark side to it. When I think of anything that's ever made me laugh, it's when you're grappling with something really grim.
I think it's safe to say we're getting older, but we're also getting stranger. We can all be thankful for that.
Quirky is a little bit hack. It's the easiest way to explain the way we fit in the world, and maybe compared to the regular world, we are quirky.
We're not as emotionally arrested as we appear on the surface.
"Awesome"? We like to think of it as "gnarly."
I'm really uptight and kinda bitchy.
Britain is the only country where you can serve tartar sauce with cucumber and call it a sandwich.
[Brooklyn's] not the kind of place where you knock on a stranger's door -- "Hi, I know you, you're the crazy guy that lives on the fourth floor ... gimme some candy. What's that you're barbecuing in your kitchen? It's a human head!"
I think we're basically a band for people who aren't worrying about whether they're cool or not. Which is not to say we're trying to be uncool.
You see, we started touring with a band because we were making too much money and we had to figure out a way to lose some. So we're keeping honest, we're staying close to our indie roots.
I think of myself as a snob. I think mass culture is stupid. I think most of what's going on in the world culturally is kind of jive and sexist and repellant. If that makes me a nerd, I guess I am one.