I would never talk to a girl in a bar, like a pick-up thing. But I could talk to anyone if they wore a t-shirt of a band I like.

It's really easy, in a band, to overstate - you feel like everything you do is different than the past. I think this is just another Hold Steady record, but at the same time, there is some evolution. Like, "How can we make this chorus bigger?" "What do we want this to sound like?"

You can't get every girl; you get the ones you love the best.

I use a lot of specific places in my songs - traditionally, a lot from Minneapolis and St. Paul, where I grew up. Most people, especially when you get into international touring, have not been there. So you say, "Well, isn't it risky to talk about the corner of Franklin Avenue and Lyndale?" If you do it right, someone should say, "God, I know a corner like that." Offering specific details to describe something universal.

A conversation with you is a different thing than projecting to a couple hundred people. It's bigger and more animated and it's on a bigger scope, but still in the heart, it's honestly me.

I think the other thing that shaped me a little bit is that I really didn't have any success in music until my early to mid-30s.

People make maps of all the places I've mentioned. I knew that those people were out there. I wanted to create something for them.