It's always strange to read the things you've hoped for in the past because by now those hopes may be spoken for or gone, transformed or altogether forgotten. Like time, hope can be so senseless. It can carry us up mountains or lie us in the quicksand. But like time, hope is unstoppable, inevitable, and blind. Sometimes we travel fast, hurdling towards the unknown, sometimes the unknown comes hurdling towards us while we watch time standing still.

I think that's the most important thing: when life kind of screws you over a little bit, you've got to learn from that experience.

If you can drink beer while doing it, it's not a sport

There's no certainty to the next couple of years, but people are paying attention now. And I want to put out a record when people are paying attention, because that's when it has the best chance of being heard.

Suddenly it makes sense again. In no haze of mindfulness, staring down at this snow-covered quilt of America, I am the stars exploding. Voice shot down to hell, half sick, half recovered, alive and well and ready. The unknown for now will remain as such and in this moment that feeling is not one of suspension. It is the hopeful unknown. Reaching into the future could only be good now as the past is wrapping itself in ribbons and pleasant packing paper, rarely to be revisited.

I try not to release songs that I'm not proud of, and even songs that I don't connect with.

You know, frankly, it's like I sort of realized something about life in the past six or eight months - that taking things a day at a time is a blessing and it's an honor and it's something that makes the day that you're living a lot more valuable