We've gotten better at shooting down routine material or stuff we feel like we've done better in the past. Getting different people in the band for periods also keeps it from going stale.

I really liked Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls and a couple of others, but with these kinds of movies the best part is the 'talking about it over a beer afterwards' bit - and once is kind of enough.

Sadly, as a songwriter you sooner or later finish developing your musical understanding.

I always have problems with seeing how our new stuff relates to our old stuff - I'm better at seeing long lines in other people's music than in my own.

We've gotten better at shooting down routine material or stuff we feel like we've done better in the past. Getting different people in the band for periods also keeps it from going stale.

Where Snah [Hans Magnus Ryan] is a melody and texture man, I am more of a riff, rhythm and concept guy. I am much better than him in certain fields, and he surely wipes the floor with me in others, and we both know it's like that.

It feels like we've grown enough as musicians over the last few years to go new places, and our conceptual and compositional abilities have developed along with it, so we're pushing all the envelopes we can at the same time and it still feels like cutting edge work to us. It seems to resonate with people.