I'm Not Like A 90-mph Fastball Kind

Every Record We Do There Are Always Two Camps. There's The Camp That's Like, "i Love It. It Sounds Different Than The Last One." There Are The People That Are Like, "i Want It To Sound Like The Last One." You Can't Please Everybody All The Time, But I Think For The Most Part We Tend To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Self-reference To Kind Of Make Sure We Continue To Push Things Forward.

There Were Two Recording Studios In Bellingham. One Was Really Expensive, A "nice Studio." We Were At The Point Where We Were Young And Irreverent. We Would Scoff At The Idea Of A Nice Studio. "why Would You Want To Go To A Nice Studio? Oh Wow, They Have Really Expensive Gear. Ooh, That's Really Fancy. Well We've Got An Eight-track. We've Got It Going On Here." Now That We Have The Resources, We're Like, "oh Wow, A Nice Studio Is Pretty Nice! They Do Have Nice Outboards Here. It's Actually A Pretty Good Place." It's Funny How Much Changes So Quickly.

The Photo Album Is The Weakest Record. For The First Time In Our Careers, We Found Ourselves With An Economic Incentive To Be On The Road And To Be Making Albums. We Had Cut Ourselves Free From The Security Of Day-job Life. The Goals Became Primarily Financial, At Least For A While. That Was The Roughest Time We Had Ever Had As A Band, Because That Was The First Moment We Realized That This Was For Real. We Were Not Goofing Around Anymore. We All Threw Everything We Had Into This In A Way Where We All Found Ourselves Really Far From Home, And We Were Stuck With Each Other.

Bands Who Are In Their Early 20s Today, They Are Living In Their Own Time And They Have A Series Of Parameters They Have To Work Around. Ten Years Ago, Our Reality Was Spending A Lot More Time In Obscurity Before Anyone Really Knew Who We Were. I Don't Feel Like I Have Any Real Advice To Give Anybody Who Is Starting A Band Today. As Mike Watt Said, "you Know, Not Everyone Has The Ability To Be Born At The Same Time." We Wanted To Be Like R.e.m., But The Reality Is That 15 Years After R.e.m. Was Putting Out Those Records, The Playing Field Had Changed Drastically As Well.

An Ex-girlfriend Once Got Upset When I Told Her That Music Is The Most Important Thing In My Life. It's More Important Than Anyone Else Could Ever Be. I Don't Want To Be Overly Dramatic And Say It's The Only Thing That Gets Me Up And Keeps Me Going. But People In Your Life Come And Go. As You Go Through Your Life, You Make Friendships, You Break Friendships, You Have Relationships. Music Is The One Thing I've Always Been Able To Rely On.