I didn't have the patience for the research, or anything like that. I just like how it sets the imagination off. It's just an area that's very fertile for great words. Great metaphors, potentially.

Most records, you build from the drums and bass up. This one, we started with the vocals in Nashville and recorded them live with just the guitars and tried to make that complete and lovely-sounding without any adornment at all. I really wanted to get something with the vocal that I've never gotten before Armchair Apocrypha.

The instrumental record is a bit subtler. It's the kind of stuff on sound check, when I first pick up my violin and start to play, the kind of melodies that just pour out of me. Some of them sound very classical. Some of them sound experimental, polyrhythmic loops that I make.

Sometimes I just think we're not meant to fly halfway around the world in a day. That some kind of mutation is going to happen.

I write a lot more when I'm happy, because you're hopeful, you're motivated.

Sometimes the word dictated the melody.

I put a lot into my records, and I won't release anything I'm not totally thrilled with.