LOU BARLOW

I was cripplingly shy. When I was in high school, my teachers thought I was mentally disabled because I wouldn't be able to say anything or do anything. They thought I didn't speak.

That's what I've figured out over the years - the way I write makes people feel uncomfortable.

I just write... I follow the melodies that I can't forget/the ones that pop up in my brain the most.

If you put heavy, regular classic guitar strings on a baritone ukulele, it gets pretty low. It has a really nice, low, warm feel to it.

Music doesn't always bring me to tears; if I hear 'Love' by John Lennon at a vulnerable moment, it will bring me to tears.

NYC is a wonderland full of passionate music fans. Once I got over being intimidated by rock critics and finicky hipsters, I realized that NYC was a great place to play.

I think people, just because of digital recording and how computers have become such an important part of our lives, I think the means to record music now is in more people's hands. It's a lot cheaper than it used to be.

It's kind of crazy how music helped me overcome the anxieties that I have.

People in the Midwest, there's a lot of regional pride and a lot more, like, fake positivity - 'That's great - you're awesome!'

After discovering the Ramones, I discovered really crude ways to multi-track by taking another cassette recorder and plugging that into the eight-track, playing it back, so that as I was recording with the mic in my guitar, I could have another cassette player I had recorded on feeding into the recording.

When I was a teenager, my mom got me a really nice baritone ukulele.

I hear people telling me a lot that the production of that particular record - 'One Part Lullaby' - really influenced them. I'm like, 'What? We were dropped from the label after that!'

To bicker over what could have been is silly.

I wrote 'Healthy Sick,' from our first LP, when I was 19. I'll happily play it till I'm 91 because it always feels good and truthful.

Maybe I can't write without painting myself into a corner first.

Los Angeles was really beautiful, and California in general is a great place to live.

The minute we first started recording 'Defend Yourself,' I thought, 'Yeah. We're going to have to deal with a really terrible review from Pitchfork for this record.'

Coming back to Dinosaur Jr. and actually writing songs for the band was really intense for me.

I'll figure something out by writing a song about it.

I always felt weird. I don't feel particularly likeable.

Don Henley is real fallback for awfulness.

I'm the haphazard engineer of my own music.

The Music Machine is my favorite rock band ever.

'One Part Lullaby.' It was our big major-label record. People reference it quite a bit, but it did absolutely nothing. It's like the 'Kids' soundtrack. It did nothing. It didn't start anything for me.

I have really severe tinnitus.