I feel like the personal me and the artistic me are separate, but connected. It's almost like a Jekyll and Hyde thing. As much as you try to keep them apart, they end up together. I'm very much aware that when I'm miserable on the creative side - if I can't make things work a certain way - it really detracts from being the father I want to be. So in order to ultimately be a good father and the man I want to be I know I need to keep my creative side in check, or at least a little bit happy. It's weird how it's intertwined that way.

Emo always meant emotional. Any kind of art or music should be emotional. If its not, than it's pretty much just a jingle selling bleach or pizza.

Sometimes it's a little overwhelming to take on other people's stories, that's just the kind of person I am, maybe I'm empathetic to a fault, I internalize a lot, so it can be a bit hard sometimes, but I understand that that's what they need, and if I can do it, then I'll do it, but if I can't, then I'll try to take a knee.

Every time I felt the pain coming on I'd go downstairs and hammer out an idea. After a few months I started to take a look at what I was making, I had for the first time in my life written a large grip of songs completely alone and without any expectations or plans of what they would be for.

I have a split - of my real home-life side that's real-life, and then the creative side that is not necessarily real-life, but it intersects my real-life so much.

Love what you do and who you truly are. Be willing to die for it. If you are true to yourself, you can never go wrong

I'm a big proponent of letting songs tell me what they wanna sound like.