I've Always Had A Soft Spot For

I Feel Like There's A Lot Of Beauty In The Darkness Of 'narrow Stairs,' But That's Not Really A Place I'm Ready To Go To For A While. I'm Interested In Taking A Different Approach And Having The Next Record Be Different In Tone - I'm Just Not Interested In Making Another Dark, Dark Album.

If There Is One Thing I Think I Have Accomplished, It's That I Always Thought Of Myself As A Very Literal Songwriter, And As I Look At Some Of Those Older Records, I Don't Hear It Now The Way I Did When I Was 20. I Think It Is Undeniable That The Songs Have Become More Instantaneously Descriptive And Literal. I'd Like The Songs To Be More Storytelling, But Also Have The Turns Of Phrase Within Them That Would Hopefully Distance My Writing From The Pack. I Feel Like On Those Older Records There Are A Lot Of Attempts At Clever Turns Of Phrase.

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.

Everybody Has A Language Or Code That They Use With Their Wife Or Their Girlfriend Or Boyfriend Or What Have You. It’s A Language Aside From The Language They Have With Strangers. I’ve Always Been Maybe An Abuser Of Alliteration, But I’ve Always Loved It And I Like How Those Words Sound Together.

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.