It's hard to get hot over a painting; there's no equivalent for teenage obsessiveness. Art obsession is ideology. Ideology can be made sexy, but it's easier in music.

I was very aware of performers who have a persona, whether it's Siouxsie Sioux or Patti Smith or Lydia Lunch, and I'm just this middle-class girl coming from a more conventional upbringing, this California person. But in a way I felt like it's important to represent the normal.

I can't think about whether I'll disappoint Sonic Youth fans. It's not like I want people to be disappointed, but I just can't control that.

I think that certainly, whenever you have a new band, the first record always has a certain energy to it before you know what you're doing. I think some of the early Sonic Youth stuff was maybe like that.

Innovation, creativity, and lunacy goes hand in hand.

I realized after writing songs for years how important it is. Whether it provides a living for me or not, that creative outlet is something I need.

The writer must be a participant in the scene... like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character.

I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that.