I don't take myself that seriously when it comes down to that stuff. My drummer is my favorite drummer in the world, and he also happens to be the funniest person you'll meet. He's a constant reminder every time stuff gets a little too heavy, maybe I have a bad show or I'll hit a horrible note on some recorded TV thing or something, and he's like, "Man don't take yourself so seriously - this is a joke, we're playing music." And that's a great thing to keep me grounded at all times. We're not saving lives, but the power does help us.

More than anything, I’m excited to have the artistic freedom and opportunity to make a sophomore record. Everybody dreads the sophomore slump, whereas I am embracing it and can’t wait to either go down in flames, or take it to another level. It’s not going to be in the middle – it’ll be one way or the other. That’s how it has to be.

I've always found it pretty difficult to write a happy song.

I never try and force-feed any song idea or lyrical message. It's really what's on my mind and what comes out of me. And a lot of these lyrics are metaphors for specific life situations that I've been through, and in most cases, the struggles. Something about human beings wearing sadness heavily on their sleeve inspires me to make something uplifting about the situation.

I never wanted to do music to get girls, right, to get popular, or anything like that. I really love music and I want to make it better the best I can. I can tell when something's real, or when something's put together. I can just feel it. So I'm my own worst critic and harshest critic and I just want to put honest music out there.

Trying to put music out there in the world is a pretty exciting, yet terrifying, thing and I've just been through the ringer.

Look, one of the things that I know for sure is that none of us truly knows. That's it. It'll hit you later.