For me, I'm more of a songwriter than a guitar player or singer. And not having things to work on was really kind of nice.

A lot of overdubs from the last couple of records had to do with me being insecure about the way my voice sounds or the way I play guitar. I would want to mask it with extra things, or keep every moment super exciting. With the newest record, I tried my best to back off, and if something wasn't interesting at every moment, or if my voice didn't sound that good, just let it go and accept it.

That's one of those hazards of an interview: You get tired of your stock answer and you try to get creative and even play devil's advocate.

When I was growing up, I really liked punk rock. I liked the sort of people that played really powerful music that was pretty unassuming otherwise - people who didn't dress weird or do much theatrics.

People who were really good at playing or singing seemed boring to me.

To me, Modest Mouse is one of the best bands ever. I actually wasn't surprised that they made it big. It's always weird to see it happen, and it happens so fast, all of a sudden songs are in the background on TV.

Sometimes songs need extra time and space to really play themselves out, and some songs it's like, this is all you need, a straightforward thing.