My feeling is that I think writers in general tend to be self-conscious and it takes a bit of a leap of faith or just not giving a sh-t to write something you know people are going to criticize.

They say it's better to bury your sadness in a graveyard or garden that waits for the spring to wake from its sleep and burst into green.

I definitely think religion is responsible for a lot of the evils of the world. I mean that's not really in debate. But at the same time, I think whatever gets you through the day, whatever helps you make sense of life I'm not gonna begrudge my grandmother with her rosary beads. It works for them. And at the end of the day, I don't claim to know the answer to anything.

You could be happy, the minute you try. Why won't you try? Oh won't you try?

I’m always fascinated when people really fervently believe, because I have such a hard time believing anything. When people have real faith in something, it’s fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind.

All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.

I've been part of running a label since I was a kid, so I understand how it works. But the more and more I learn about it, the less and less interested I am in it.