When I first started, my message was about joy, but I didn't really have the vocabulary and life experience to fully deliver it.

When you're writing a song and there are five people invested in it, it's easy for one person to say, 'Oh, this song is about this and that', and everyone has to hear the idea and see if they can do better.

I do feel most at home playing live, but the feeling of getting into the studio to see the new songs take shape was really incredible.

I'm always thinking about the next record. I've got like 20 different themes and then I'll scratch the themes. It's a learning process.

I was curious as to why a million Americans weren't lining the beaches in boats and with buckets to preserve the life sustaining resource that is the Gulf of Mexico. Personally, as a surfer, I was most sorry for my fellow watermen. Seeing beaches closed due to contamination just broke my heart. If that ever happened in San Diego I'm afraid I might be forced to move.

Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene. Be the change you want to see in the world.

I love the sound of the wind in the trees and the song of the birds and the shuffle in the leaves of my many woodland friends.