Matt Berninger

I watched R.E.M. connect with the back row of a 50,000-seat venue.

The same song can have drastically different feels and personalities just by changing some minor things. A different drumbeat or some vocal overdub could completely transform the song.

Alligator' was the first record that anyone paid attention to, and it seemed like it was the screamy songs that got us that attention.

Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave know best. Although I wear a lot of jeans, I've been told that Nick Cave doesn't own a pair and wouldn't be caught dead in denim.

A person with grace is somebody who's socially graceful or is a classy person, but sometimes you just feel the opposite of that, and you just feel like a jerk and a loser and a weirdo.

I don't love being on the road.

People will dig their heels in and fight for the things they love and against the things they hate.

Getting on stage and performing and standing under lights is such an unsettling experience - in a good and bad way - but it's the only place I can go to feel comfortable.

A lot of my lyrics are approximate meaning without me knowing why they sound right.

I love to make songs out of some of those shadows - you know, some of the things you lie awake thinking about, social anxieties and romantic insecurities and all that stuff.

Once you do have a child, you want to talk about every detail of it. And it is really boring to all your friends, and it should be. I was really worried about even going there at all.

At first, when 'Boxer' came out, people were a little let down, and we worried that it might be the end for us. But then it began to grow on people. 'Boxer' bought us our creative freedom.