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.

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.

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

I think this insatiable need to get to know new music is a big part of why it has lasted so long.

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.

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.

A lot of ideas get re-used and made part of new songs if the first version didn't cut the mustard, and the stuff that gets left off usually contained the germ of something good but failed to reach a satisfactory state by the recording stage.