The reality is that the shows kind of disconnect from the songs a little bit. You're playing the songs, but they take on a life of their own.

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?"

It's a template record for the intersection between pop and noise, starting out with 'Sunday Morning' - a real beautiful, almost innocent sunny day song. You have a lot of different types of things on one record. It can be really pretty, or it can be really awful inside, depending on where your head's at at the moment. I got it in ninth grade and I think I've listened to it every month since then.

The Replacements are the foundation for a lot of what came after in alternative and college rock. Let It Be is their best record and has the most diverse collection of songs. Some pop stuff, some heavy stuff, and some real moments of beauty like 'Sixteen Blue' and 'Androgynous.' It's a record I always go back to.

If we enjoy what we're doing, we shouldn't really need a break.

I'm not only a songwriter but I'm a massive music fan and I love going to shows. It's different than reading a book.

I'm able to draw outside my own personal experiences. No one wants to hear the song about what I really did today, which is go get coffee and clean my apartment.