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 think of Gord Downie voice as Whitman-esque. He has a poetic voice that contains multitudes, both the suppleness of the instrument of his voice, and just the lyrical boundaries that he pushes, which are really always thrilling to me.

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

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

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.

John Berger once defined music by saying that it began as a howl, became a prayer, then a lament, and still contains the elements of all three. I think that's pretty wise. That's about the only way I know how to explain what music is.