One of our very favorite shows of 2008 was our Slowtrain instore. We drove straight from San Francisco, pulled up to the back of the store, dragged our entire setup inside and played our new album, Rook, start-to-finish - and they let us get away with it.

The thing is that honestly we haven't had an audience. And we have a chance to have an audience now. Which is great because I think we've sort of evolved as a band to the point where I think we might actually be interesting to go see.

I don't consider myself a very religious person in any.

I really want to try to protect as much as I can, to safeguard peoples' first experience with a record. Because I want you to get the whole thing as one integrated piece, because it's not like I'm narrating stories with music behind them.

I like having some things very clear while other things are obscured... so that it kind of keeps coming into and out of focus.

I certainly think there are things that impressed me as a child about the church. The smells and the sounds and the pagaentry of it remained with me. The aesthetic I really love. I think a lot of my sense of melody comes from singing those hymns and doing the renaissance music and stuff.

It's not like I'm narrating stories with music behind them. It's all kind of one thing. You hope you can provoke a specific emotional reaction, but in ways that aren't quite plain.