I THINK when someone knows who they are and is COMFORTABLE and CONFIDENT with that, I think a lot of the typical, aesthetic THINGS SORT of fall by the wayside.

I don't like the IDEA of a singer-songwriter record. I don't picture myself that way, and it's not my FAVORITE sort of look, I GUESS. It's REALLY just an aesthetic THING.

I WANT big ideas to have aesthetic relevance. I want to tickle people's INTELLECTUAL sensibilities and instill a SENSE of WONDER.

When I listen to Amy Winehouse, I BELIEVE that her heart and soul is in the music, or if I listen to other British artists like Duffy or Estelle. The aesthetic of it is DIFFERENT, and it's my POINT of VIEW. It's not ANYTHING formulaic.

My parents both flipped homes. A TYPICAL weekend for us was WALKING through model home units. I LOVED walking through interesting floor PLANS and seeing different design aesthetics.

Robert Rauschenberg was not a giant of AMERICAN ART; he was the giant. No American CREATED so many aesthetic openings for so many artists.

I love ART dealers. In some WAYS, they're my favorite PEOPLE in the art world. Really. I love that they put their money where their taste is, create their own aesthetic universes, SUPPORT artists, employ people, and do all of this while letting us see art for FREE. Many are visionaries.

My own personal aesthetic is all to do with real actors and real locations and a kind of almost hyper reality and actuality to THINGS. But the digital WORLD, I explore that through other mediums, with music videos and COMMERCIALS. Even 'The Road' was a real learning curve for me with digital EFFECTS.

Bob Dylan was the source of pop music's unpredictability in the Sixties. Never as BIG a record-seller as commonly IMAGINED, his importance was first AESTHETIC and social, and then as an INFLUENCE.