More labels should be like that. Instead of putting these records out myself, I should have just signed with them, but they probably don't like my music (laughs).

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

When I go to Japan and do shows I play for 1,000 to 1,500 people. I like a lot about Japan. Their popular culture and mass commercialization appeals to me.

My family lives there, so I come back sometimes between shows for a couple days. I get back a couple times a year. When I was 30 to 34 I was weirded out when I came back - you know, how your past gets away from you. It's grown so much.

The openness of rural Nebraska certainly influenced me. That openness, in a way, fosters the imagination. But growing up, Lincoln wasn't a small town. It was a college town. It had record stores and was a liberal place.

He wanted to play accordion on something of mine and I said you can play accordion, but I want you to play piano and organ on some stuff. He came over a couple times a week for two weeks and gave me therapy as to whether I should do The Thorns or not.

Girlfriend and 100 Percent Fun were my two peeks, around '92 and '96. The reality is that the times I had the most media success, sold lots of records and played bigger shows, I had the least control of my own life.

It wasn't so much that I had to leave to make it in the music business as I was curious to be out on my own and sort of explore. I never felt that where I was ever influenced my songwriting.

He helped make Living Things even more crazy than I wanted it to be. He added old-fashioned piano and classical folk music - that weird otherworldly vibe - all these elements got onto the record.

First off, I don't want anyone to think I'm this huge thing in Japan. Every group from here that's made any records over any length of time - even indie bands - have a Cheap Trick effect in Japan.

I had no allusions of radio success. I just loved being in studios. I was having fun and in that sense I now feel a lot like I did when I did that record.

Back then, we could drive a mile from home and there was nothing. Now it's grown in every direction and is populated and modernized. I guess I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm not someone that thinks everything should stop growing.

More labels should be like that. Instead of putting these records out myself, I should have just signed with them, but they probably don't like my music (laughs).

I have more perspective now, and am happier now. It's not that I don't want success, but I now know I can have success at a lower level and make much more money doing it by myself. I make $6 or $7 bucks a record vs. nothing off those other records.

They said, 'If we put you in first class with Brian, will you do it?' So I flew after not having flown in eight years. If there's one person who doesn't like flying as much as me, it's Brian.

I figured if the plane goes down, I'll go with a great genius and will always have my name connected with his.

There are things that I value now that I didn't when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.

It became a question of do I want to be on a label where it could take three years to put out a record instead of putting out three records over the same period of time on my own.

So it helped me to just let go of all my tensions and feelings about that world and say 'OK, this is for my fans in Japan. They'll be nice and get into it and have fun.' And it was the first record I made at my home studio.

You know that they're not just into it for the moment, they really care about it and value it over time.

I wanted Kimi to be a Japanese record with a Japanese title. I wanted it to be for them. They appreciate things on a different level, and take their art very seriously - that's special if you're an artist.

I went to a rare live Van Dyke show and met him there. And then he came to a show of mine and we spoke back stage. The third time was at Brian Wilson's birthday party.

The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him.

Creativity is much better when it's free. Someone can take it and sell it if that's what it needs, and from that standpoint, you have to have a label. If you could make your music and just give it away and somehow make a living - that would be the best scenario.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.

Uhm, I'm the one wanting the lessons! I don't want to say too much about it because I'd rather have you see the movie, but he's trying to find his music.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.

There's an inherent thing in me where, if things are going too smooth, I'll sabotage the hell out of them, just to make the music more of a sanctuary.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.