People don't tend to notice, but in the past 10 years especially there's been a lot of growth in how I write songs and what goes into them. You can listen to Mountain Goats from 1991 to 2007 and never hear a seventh chord. In 2007 or 2008, I started working on the piano to grow as a songwriter. I started throwing major sevens in and sixes and more interesting stuff.

As an artist, you always have to be growing. You don't just want to do what you already know people like.

I'm kind of a hermit. Left to my own devices, I won't submerge myself in anything further afield than the driveway.

When all my friends insisted that they were feeling jaded, it struck me as an affected pose. To me, everything is always new.

The studio's a collaborative environment. I just try to let people bring their own ideas to the songs and see what happens.

It's easy to follow national politics and weigh in on social media, but if I'm tweeting stuff about Chatham County, no one cares.

You learn to present dark things without including their ability to harm, treasuring them for what they are.