Louisville was also good place for being able to make whatever kind of music you wanted to. You didn't have to worry about renting a practice space or figure out when another band would be in there or worry about if your stuff is going to get stolen.

On a musical level, I do find it rewarding. It's not like I want to blow my brains out while I'm playing these songs from so long ago. I am still surprised by the way the songs are constructed - note choices, the way the arrangements are made, the way these songs are assembled. I'm still amazed at times.

We made basement practice songs.To have them presented in such a huge fashion today - like at Primavera, where it's thousands of people in a festival environment - is surreal. I never thought some of the songs would ever need to be projected at such a volume or to such a wide span of people.

Personally, I love the cookie monster grunts. I like how they alienate listeners. We sound the way we sound. We're individuals. We don't all like the same music. Everybody contributes their own influences, style, and history.

There are five of us. We've all played in various bands together, in different combinations. I know that Todd [Cook] and Tony [Bailey] are my favorite rhythm section - they're just like a unit. I guess we've all just played together in various capacities, so when the band was coming together, it was sort of like we just chose members because they had similar sensibilities and also because they're just cool. We all got along real well.

When we woke up every morning, one of our things was, "Let's go put a new sign in the back window of the van." Those are the different signs we had up in the back of our van, so that the people behind us could have something enjoyable to look at.

I stayed a kid for a pretty long time, and the logistics of being in a band, I did not take seriously at all.