being misunderstood

There’s quite a bit of humor in your work. Do you think the public often misinterprets it or worse yet, writes it off as extreme eccentricity ?

Probably, but then again, I’m sort of doing my own thing. I’ve been quite lucky and I’m not trying to please anyone, and yet people are still interested in me. I don’t expect people to get me. That would be quite arrogant. I think there are a lot of people out there in the world that nobody gets. I guess I’m quite used to not being understood rather than being understood. But then again, if I turn on the news and I see a chess player, an athlete or a politician, I don’t really get them [laughs].

In order to get someone you have to read books about them, listen to their albums, spend time with them — it’s a lot of time and effort, and I don’t expect that. I know there are people that have done that with my music and I really appreciate that. But the overall public haven’t done that so, of course, they’re not going to get me. It’s not like I’m bitter about it [laughs]. It’s just like, they don’t know what’s behind the mountain because they haven’t gone there.

www.spinner.com, August 30th 2007