Irag, I'll Scratch Your Back...

I like it.

I'm not even sure what it means. [Pause] That's endemic of the way we work: not to become formulaic and not to suck. And, if we start sucking, to be the first ones to realize that. There's not an album that we put out that I think doesn't have something good to say about it.

I don't mean this as a joke, but wasn't "Imitation of Life" [from 2001's "Reveal"] huge in Japan?

It was our first-ever No. 1 single. None of us have ever figured out what a hit single is. It's not something that's important to us. We just write the stuff, then go, "That could maybe be on the radio." I'm asked all the time to explain why I do what I do, where it comes from, what inspires me. It sounds stupid to say, but I have no idea.

© 2003