The song writing is different because with this stuff, I write it on my own and with Hot Water, we're more of a collective and I love both sides of that. Honestly, it's two different animals but I love and respect them both and feel really honored to be blessed with people who care about it and come out and support both sides of it.

Balance is everything. And I'm not just speaking from a road perspective - even from home. My wife and I work out of the house and we always struggle to find that balance because when work is around you 24/7, it's easy to neglect the little things in life that really help us to rejuvenate or heal.

It's always a blast playing the new stuff. But I feel like songs, in a way, are never finished. You get to a point where you're comfortable enough to put a stamp on it and send it out there, but even after recording it, when you're playing it live, you hear different harmonies, you hear different notes, you hear different tempos or peaks and valleys in the song.

Creating records and writing music with people I admire and respect is a very spiritual and enlightening thing for me.

I can write a song and a thousand people could hear it and there will be countless different reasons why those people get something out of that song. But they're all there for the same reason, which is to enjoy music and to let it help dissolve those problems or those rough days or to give a reason to keep putting the boots on. So to see ideas come to fruition and for someone to get something out of it is a beautiful thing.

Well we never set out to write a concept album. I've always used song writing as a therapeutic release so in that process, I just do my best to be honest with myself and look inside myself and whatever comes out usually just reflects or depicts what I'm going through in my life at that time.

It's an opportunity that's there for all of us, like a life raft or preserver to hang onto when there's nothing else or no one else around because man, we're human and no matter what, one way or another, everyone of us in our lives, at some point in time, are going to feel alone.