Simon Hale, the British arranger, does all string and wood arrangements on my records.

My first two records were more energetic; Phantom Moon is subtle, quiet; so these various reactions are just something I expected.

Because of my Buddhist practice, I'm never lacking for inspiration.

If I were to do this over I'd play a lot more shows before I made a record.

The difficult thing about a pop record is that you're given guidelines: it has to have 3 choruses, and then it must be between 3 minutes fifteen seconds and three minutes forty-five seconds.

I certainly wouldn't say that my life is a disaster, but there have been moments where I've felt like that.

I mean, at the end of the day when I'm making a record, what I want to do is what I do.

I also wanted to make a record that was about other things than romance, yeah, after two years on the road singing all the songs from the first album, I got kind of tired of that.

I actually am always a music first person.

But really important, perhaps most important is the craft; how you make your record, the creation of these sonic worlds you want your listener to hear.

I'm fortunate I have this coterie of musicians around me to help take music to next level. Being surrounded by so much creative energy, so many creative people really feeds that creativity in me.

My second record was all about big ideas - I was trying to make big statements about the culture, about life. I think in a certain way, I was a 27 year old kid with a guitar.

Simon Hale, the British arranger, does all string and wood arrangements on my records.

I try to make sure that the Buddhism is more or less implicit in the music rather than explicit.

Lately I've been a workaholic. I'm in the studio all the time and I've helped to produce a couple of artists.

Things come to me pretty regularly. There is never a shortage or a backlog.

And frankly, when I made that record, hit songs were not what I was trying to achieve.

I got a publishing deal with BMG, they were supportive, and some money to record demos.

The experiences of promoting my first album were really something; there is so much illusion in my environment (touring and pop music) that I wanted to clear away.

But I can't really say there is too much modern music that I'm blown away by at this moment.

So, once I've written a song, you know, I'm pretty happy with what the song is on its own terms.

It's inevitable your environment will influence what you do.

I wouldn't say that I've had a tough life by any stretch of the imagination.

I actually think sadness and darkness can be very beautiful and healing.

Ultimately, if I'm really moved by something, it's going to go on the record and that's that.

I make the kind of music I like.

I think my Buddhist practice has a profound influence on my life and encompasses my creative projects.

I'm a pretty big P.J. Harvey record fan and you can really hear New York in his record.

Happy music doesn't tend to move me much.

I'd have these weird experiences where I'd just be walking down the street with this chord progression in my head, this happened more than a few times, and I'd walk home and find a fax in my machine and it would match the music in my head.

I think in a way I was probably completely naive about what it takes to make something become a hit.

I started playing music at a pretty young age.

I feel fortunate about being able to make the music I want to make and getting away with it.

For my second record I had gotten ProTools (program) and started to familiar myself with hard disc recording.

So I started chanting when I was nineteen, which was about twelve years ago, and it really had a huge impact on my outlook, happiness, and general creativity.

I privilege the music over the lyrics.

A real foolproof way to do it is play your stuff by hook or by crook and build up a grass roots following.

Its inevitable your environment will influence what you do.

Stories come from other shows at other studios where only 2,000 rounds were actually used and the money for the other 3,000 went right into the studio pockets. Corners were cut and that production suffered. Knock wood, that hasn't happened to us.

I would like to see it go back to the wood racquets. To see the touch put back in tennis.

After a hundred years the son of the King then reigning, who was of another family from that of the sleeping Princess, was a-hunting on that side of the country, and he asked what those towers were which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood.

Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.

If the weather is good I go into the nearby wood - there I am painting a small beech forest (in the sun) with a few conifers mixed in. This takes until 8 'o clock.

Well, very long ago, on the spot where the Wild Wood waves now, before ever it had planted itself and grown up to what it now is, there was a city - a city of people, you know.

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood.

I used to get on a stove wood pile at 5-6 years old and I would have a piece of stove wood and kindling bark as a pick, and I was a star.

I think the players, I put in the book for example that we should go back to wood rackets, probably they laughed at me, I'm a dinosaur, but I think that you see these great players, have even more variety and you see more strategy, there'd be more subtlety.

By means of tracing-paper I transfer my design to the wood and draw on that.

We had grain but no mills, so I designed a special mill of wood so we could make flour.