It's great to know that our old stuff still sounds good to our fans, just as it's wonderful to think that we've turned a few people on to jazz over the years.

I don't think you can escape the environment we live in now.

I think of Steely Dan as being of its time, and it may be inseparable from its time.

I'm starting to get older, and began to think about mortality a little more. My mother died in 2003 and that was a big shock. When your parents start to die off, that's going to be a revelation. So for me, this album - although it might sound quite cheery - is really talking about death.

We don't think of ourselves as being perfectionists, really. To us it's more about desperately trying to have it sound more or less OK.