The new solo album sounds like me: I'm singing about bad business transactions, bodily fluids, and courage.
Kevin DrewIt's hard: you get older, you have a career, the normal frustrations that come with what you do when you wear your heart on your sleeve and you try really heard. I was exhausted, and I couldn't quite see the magic of creating at that time. That's all. I couldn't get into it, and Andy [Kim] slowly resuscitated me, and that's how I made Darlings.
Kevin DrewPeople don't get that being a musician is a job, they don't get what the work takes. And that's just because you're living a dream, so everyone who's observing it from the outside can't really empathize with how much work it is because you're fortunate. And it's a kind of competition with yourself to stay away from all of the excess, whether it's booze or drugs or just the late nights with the addiction to watching the sun rise in some weird part of the world. But when you meet the other musicians, there's generally a spiritual exhaustion that you connect with.
Kevin DrewI got a little lost in "Law & Order" and "Luther" and all those shows where it's basically women dying all the time, I had to stop watching that stuff because it fills me with anxiety. And I joined a gym.
Kevin DrewWhat inspires me is anxiety and the quest to try to change things in my life. ...I got addicted to endings and beginnings and to the idea of always moving around. ...Obviously, whenever you're going through something that's the best time to create, if you're going through something amazing, or horrible, or nothing at all you should be creating. Unfortunately the songwriters of today generally torture themselves to make sure they're writing good songs and take it a little too seriously.
Kevin Drew