Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs. |
Some things remain fragments, just the lyrics and melodies or a line or two or a verse. |
Love's a recurring theme through my work. |
People's real hopes and dreams can be distorted and misdirected and packaged until you're not sure what you really want or what you even really need. |
We all must live our lives always feeling, always thinking the moment has arrived. |
After it's finished, sometimes I can trace a path that goes back to the possible source of inspiration. |
With other people, you're always swapping music. Somebody is always listening to something you've never heard. It's a great way to hear all sorts of new things. |
When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it. |
I may be revered or defamed and decried; But I tried to live my life right. |
The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together. |
I dressed up as a veterinarian for a Halloween costume party. I had the lab coat. I got a couple of stuffed animals for patients and put bandages on them. |
You have to pay attention to the moment and make it the best it can be for you. I've been trying to do that. It's really made a major difference for me. I'm a happier person. |
I see some recurring themes: things that feel threaded together, some symbolic references, and songs about some of the big questions, like death. There are a lot of references to weather, too! |
At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered. |
I learn all these things about the record talking about it after it's finished. |
We have more media than ever and more technology in our lives. It's supposed to help us communicate, but it has the opposite effect of isolating us. |
My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it. |
Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control. |
I often write either really early in the morning, or really late at night. |
I'm a hopeful cynic. |