An old bandit adage: A bell is a cup until it is struck.

Music has been already devalued by the consumer. There's an expectation that it should be free so the race to the bottom has already been won.

There's a little less pressure in doing a solo tour, in some ways a simpler setup. A little bit more relaxed. But then also there's also - doing the big tours is exciting, because you get to put on the big show and everything. But I don't know if I would prefer one over the other. I guess it's no secret that I just don't like touring in general, but it's sort of the reality of the business these days.

Early on I was a lot more unsure of myself on stage. When our band The Decemberists was getting bigger audiences I was more concerned about alienating them, so I wasn't as willing to take risks and do weird stuff on stage. But once you get more accustomed to it you tend to have more fun with it and not worry about being pilloried for acting out. Whenever you play in front of 400 or 500 more people than you're used to it's always a weird, transitional period.

When everybody is playing at the same level, there's so much more noise. And there's less incentive for the people who should be rising above that noise to take time and invest in what they're doing. It just becomes about hustling and grabbing attention.

There's some things there that you just have to draw the line. Some people are just not going to like it. We would hope that everybody would like it.

I don't feel like we're setting ourselves up to be exclusive. I don't want to set up an attitude where we're telling people 'You can't listen to our music if you don't have a college degree.