The only time it dominates is during a solo, or when we play a low blues and I put figures in behind Eric's vocals. There's never any real problem fitting guitar and organ together.
I don't believe that recordings should sound radically better than the artist, I think that's dishonest. For example, I'm not a great singer but if I spent enough time tweaking my vocals, I could sound like one. But I don't, what you hear is pretty much what I sing.
I'm tired of being around men all the time. I'm going to start a band called Skirt with three girls and I'll play the guitar and sing backing vocals in drag. I went window shopping when I was in New York, saw a lot of amazing dresses.
EDM has trained a new generation of listeners' ears to accept a much broader range of what equals a song. EDM has become top 40 stuff: those sounds, those styles, those ways of thinking about song structure - even thinking that vocals aren't necessarily the central element - those ideas have made their way into popular culture.
Blind Willie Johnson is a pretty big vocal influence. He can be very harsh, like gargly, gruff vocals, but also just slip into some very delicate, vulnerable soft stuff. I like that combination.
Actually, if you listen to the vocals on my grandfather's records, you will hear we sound similar. We both sound kind of dry. We have a dry voice, and we both love harmony - he was a man of harmony, I'm a man of harmony. I think it just runs in our blood.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals?
When I first started writing songs, I never intended on singing. I didn't really consider myself a singer at all. I was just kind of recording the demo vocals as a holding place until someone else came and sang.
People are always bemoaning the fact that electronic music is finding its way into the mainstream. To me, that's the best possible thing. It's going to give us a much bigger platform. It's going to train people's ears to these sounds so they can listen to a track even if it doesn't have vocals.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals? It's very stuck, whereas with electronic music, new sounds are being created.
I do sing a bit, a solo called 'Rubies,' and the female vocals on 'In Paradisum,' 'The Sound of Silence,' and 'Sapphire Clouds'.
It's a particular skill, I think, doing backing vocals. You're blending the vocals between the gaps, between the music.
With 'Torches,' I wanted to make a great pop record; I wanted every song to be exciting, not to have too much space, no long pieces of music without vocals. I kind of wanted to write the perfect pop album.
I pride myself on having a really authentic music sound: no gimmicks, just my vocals.
It's just a lot of fun to be able to see your ideas come into fruition. And to see people translate the things that come out of my mind vocally. And to be able to produce vocals and give people my point of view musically. And to be able to sit in the crowd and see people sing the song that I wrote, it's an amazing feeling.
My production and songwriting and the environment around those vocals are not inspired by R&B at all.
Alanis Morissette - I love how she's not afraid to say what she wants to say. Love it or hate it, she's going to say it. And her vocals are crazy; they're amazing, and I also love how her music is really organic.
Musicians like James Blake were a big influence on me. How he uses his vocals is amazing. And then Yeasayer and Animal Collective, who aren't pop bands exactly, but they do something that is so catchy and undeniable and so much fun.
