Nate Ruess

“It's important that I get time to run, to just go for a jog for about 30 minutes. It helps with my voice, but it also kind of gives me a little bit of time to myself - and you get to see a city.”

“I idolised bands like Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, who wanted to reach as many people as they could.”

“As a songwriter I hate this whole, 'If it's a sad song, it has to sound like a sad song thing.' And that goes all the way back to my days with the Format. I'm an insane narcissist, so if I have to get something off my chest, I'll get something off my chest.”

“The Queen and Electric Light Orchestra harmonies are so distinct and fit in our songs so well sometimes, but we don't know how to do them properly.”

“I knew how touring was for 10 years, but it's completely different now that things are popping off.”

“I try and get about eight hours of sleep every single night. And I like to think that I drink more water than anyone, ever.”

“My parents had normal jobs, and I didn't just want to work all day, and so I thought if I could break into music I wouldn't have to work all day. And I had an uncle who was on Broadway, so I was like, 'I have to be able to sing.'”

“I don't play an instrument - I just write in my head, and I usually hear fully formed songs. 'We Are Young' turned out so much like it was in my head. But it also exceeded all my expectations.”

“But as long as you're creating the art you want to create, if people start liking you, you shouldn't have to apologize. You want your stuff to be heard by as many people as possible.”

“Running in Central Park is my favorite thing to wake up and do. I have my own specific path that I have to run every single time. There's a little bit of OCD involved, but I love it.”

“I was signed at 19 years old to a major label, and dropped by the time I was 22.”

“If you can make the song a soundtrack to what you're living at the time, I think that's the most important part of a song.”

“In a city like New York, any night can be completely different, even in a subtle way.”

“Even now, when I try and think of band names just randomly, I'm so thankful that 'fun.' is the name of the band. I never really think twice about it. It is so simple and so easy.”

“I think that I always thought that if my uncle was on Broadway, then I must inherently have a good voice. I don't think that for a while I did. Eventually, out of sheer will of never wanting to get a job or go to college, I found my way into doing music full-time.”

“Lyrics have become so dumbed down nowadays. People don't want to have to think about lyrics anymore, they just want to be told something. Until these great things started happening with us, I'd really given up on reaching people like that.”

“Van Morrison is probably, at this point in time, my biggest influence as a vocalist. When we were making our last album I had a vinyl copy of 'Veedon Fleece' in the vocal booth in front of me, in the dorky sense. I think there were candles around, which is really tacky, but hey, I needed to channel Van the Man!”

“Lately I've been falling asleep listening to 'Common One' by Van Morrison, specifically the song 'Summertime in England.' It's 15 minutes long, so to make it through the entire song is a real task unto itself, but Van has that emotional payoff that makes even his most tiresome songs more powerful than most people's entire catalog.”

“I picked up 'The Hunger Games' thinking it was written at my regressed reading level. I've spent hours reading it, and I'm not even halfway through. Our bass player, whose name is also Nate, ended up reading all three novels and loved them.”

“We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran away from that and started making indie-rock.”