I find that the time that goes by is actually your best friend when you are making a record. The passing of time gives you perspective on what you recorded and what you wrote. If something sounds good to you 12 months after you recorded it then chances are pretty good that there's something valuable about the part or the song.

I don't like the way recording to digital sounds. Most of the time when I'm recording to 2-inch tape, I still have a romantic vision of how songs sounded coming out of the radio when I was younger, and how they sounded coming out of my little four-track cassette player.

Even though someone has died, a piece of their spirit can still be alive. That's an exciting world for me to take music into, or to attempt to do that.

There's at least one fist bump every interview.

I like using concrete imagery, but I don't feel that's what it's about. It's a combination of concrete and abstract to take the listener somewhere they know better than you. That's true for music, seeing a painting, watching a movie... it's all some kind of an escape.

When you work on a record for three years, it's a great sense of relief when it is finally out in the world. It just feels good.

It's a hard thing to explain, but the more I arrange for strings, the more I realize the possibilities.