I'll know when a song's really awesome, for sure, and I get super stoked and I'm so high when I'm hearing it back, but then you sit with the record forever. You're mixing it and you can really just over-think everything. I'll go back and forth all the time.

I've never gotten in too much trouble with alcohol. I've never had a drinking problem, really.

I'd go to a more civil party just to socialize, and I didn't know what to do with myself. So I drank a shot of tequila. And then I drank another one. I probably had four or five shots. I was like, "Tequila! It wakes you right up!" But no.

There's downtime in music, which obviously is necessary or else you'd lose your mind in other ways, but if we're on tour and there's electricity from the audience, if you're getting a good response, then that's the positive side of the mojo where I could feel cocky and just know I'm doing good and then there's a time all of a sudden when you're alone and you just don't know if people will like it.

I know most of my records are real good but I know that there are definitely things I would've changed at the end of the day. I work on things forever, and there are things I wish I didn't do, but ultimately I know the records are good. I kind of let go of big expectations, maybe because hopefully that means if I don't have them, that it'll do really well, but you just never know.

A lot of getting a song done is booking the studio time. I'm the kind of person who will set time aside to do something and then do everything but that thing.

Not that Matador is a major label, but its major enough for me. On one level we're on Matador, but our amps still might explode on stage or they'll be an echo in the mic. It's like climbing a ladder. I like to climb it really slowly. I could probably get really professional right away, but I like to take baby steps and find my own way.