I don't sit and write records from start to finish. I write all the time, and when it's time to record you just look and see what songs you've got that could work together as a group thematically.
I don't like to be doing the same thing over and over again, so I keep trying other things.
You can't predict what people are going to like. You have to stay true to your enthusiasm and obsessions.
Music is one of those things that if you play it safe, it can be incredibly boring.
I learn something with each record and take that into the next one.
I am not interested in political writing, because it's limited in its scope. I try to write general, human kinds of songs, which suggest more than they explain. You can take a lot of different meanings, but hopefully everyone feels some kind of recognition.
Religion is a huge part of our consciousness. I grew up in the Bible Belt, so it's our mythology. Those are the stories we learn as little kids at Sunday school. I'm not afraid to use the metaphors, because I think the stories are beautiful.
I would love to be able to do the pace that people used to do decades ago, where you'd make a record a year, or something was wrong with you.
Whenever you're ready to go and have studio time, that's when we start to record.
I change things each time we go into making a record, like the personnel playing on it, the types of music.
Making sad music, it's not for me. I don't find that interesting.
I like to make fun records. Contrary to popular belief.
Yeah, I've always liked Barbara Crane's stuff.
I've always liked string sections. I'm a sucker for melody, so it's fun to have strings add more layer of melody in the arrangement.
I don't necessarily enjoy playing concerts, although that has gotten more fun with a band. But the one thing I always have enjoyed is making records and being in that creative environment. And that has become a lot more enjoyable having other people involved.
All my songs usually borrow from my own life but pull from fantasy or other people's stories that you hear, or something you read. It's fun as a writer to pull from all those different places, and to connect them. But also, I don't have an interesting enough life to strictly pull from that.
I remember 'The Shepherd's Dog' record being not necessarily a political record, but a reaction to socio-political situations in America. And it didn't manifest itself as protest or propaganda songs, but there's a lot of surreal imagery that was born out of really me being surprised Bush got re-elected in '04.
I have a hard time saying I'm going to make a whole record of just rock-out songs, because that gets boring, you know? And my voice doesn't scream very well.
I went to an art school and you learn very quickly there that you're only as good as your next idea, not so much what you've got going on at the moment. And so I embraced that. It sunk in at an early point.
I make music and hope people enjoy it - but when they do it's always a surprise. A nice surprise, but not one that I expect to always be there.
