In this frightening, anxious time to be alive it can be liberating to remember that nothing lasts forever. That can focus and invigorate our hopes.

I do get a little shy about contemporary language and events, but I also enjoy the idea of dating myself, somehow, anchoring a song in a specific time and place. Sometimes the new words and objects are too enjoyable and descriptive to ignore. And maybe making work that acknowledges that it won't last forever is important, too.

One of the wonderful things about music these days is that it's less cliqueish.

A more detailed world is a more complicated and complex one, and therefore a more empathetic one. I feel Gord's Downie lyrics are exceptionally empathetic, or that's what they accomplish. The fact that they can cross all those cultural cliques and boundaries really amplifies that, to me.

I think we all have a certain number of "coming of age" songs, and then a writer has to expand and grow into more varied and specific themes. And the music industry is, like Jawbreaker says, "selling kids to other kids," so it makes sense that those early songs in a writer's life are often the ones that catch people's ears, and later work is more difficult and less immediate.

I still think of myself as punk, because the way I became empowered to play music is entirely due to punk bands.

There are definitely parts of me in most of the protagonists I write, but I find a bit of distance can be useful, so I often find myself better able to write from a point of view that isn't exactly my own.