My friends just kept joking about all the horrible physical side effects [of Prednisone ]. I can only imagine that something that works that well has got to be bad for you.

You look back and see pictures of yourself, or hear an old song, and you know where that came from or why you were working on that - but you don't want to do that again. You don't necessarily hate it, but you're a very different person now, so, in that way you do.

You feel like half of your life is a vacation when you go to these Barcelona music festivals and have all day to sound check or go to the pool.

I used to put the vocals on top and piece it together. Now I start with the vocals and the string parts I write; the drums are kind of an afterthought. And who knows, maybe that will get boring, but right now that's the most interesting way for me.

I felt like I could get away with calling it Black Hours. That could easily be the most depressing record ever written, but because there is this sense of fun throughout the whole thing I felt like I could get away with it. Like "5 A.M."; that song's in a minor key and I'm just wailing away and it could have been just wallowing depression, but it's not.

When I finally got to 30, I'll admit that there was a little anxiety, but at the same time I actually really liked it.

I was writing music when we finished the last Walkmen record, Heaven, and a few of these songs may have even been started before Heaven was done. With The Walkmen we all wrote a lot of stuff alone, but then we'd start collaborating with each other.