Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.
I think the idea is that every time we perform Big Red Machine music it should be different somehow - like, different people, different songs maybe, definitely different versions of the songs.
I do have a way of playing piano where it's very melodic and emotional, but then often it's great if whoever's singing doesn't sing exactly what's in the piano melody, but maybe it's connected in some way.
I had been living with my family in France as COVID was starting to spiral out of control in Europe. I said to my wife that maybe they should come back to the States with me because I was worried about getting separated.
Just because you listen to The National, Spotify might tell you that you want to listen to The Lumineers' music. Well, maybe you don't.
Once you start worrying about things, you get down about yourself, whatever it may be.
I think that maybe that's my weakness, in that I don't know how to do it, so I just do what I do and try to do it as passionately and as well as I can.
I've always had that mindset of, 'OK, I may be hot this month or doing really well this month, but don't get too high, don't get too low - just enjoy it.' Don't ride the rollercoaster, basically. I always thought about it like, I'm not going to an amusement park, I'm going to a baseball field.
Some guys, first pitch of the at-bat gets called a strike - maybe it's a ball off or below their knees, and it gets called a strike - and then the next two pitches, they swing at balls in the dirt, and all of a sudden, they're yelling at the umpire about that first pitch. You just swung at two balls in the dirt, buddy.
When you go to college the first couple years, and you kind of get beat around, you kind of think about, 'Maybe if I went to pro ball, it would be a little bit better.' Now that I look back on it, I made the right choice.
