I didn't want to put myself, or anyone else, asleep with another quintessential Mark Kozelek album.

Trying to cope with the balance between home life and road life has been a theme in my music since early Red House Painters records.

When you get older, you're bothered, or inspired, by other things in life than a girl breaking up with you. Things get heavier as you get older.

We're all human and life is complicated.

Throughout my life, there's just periods when I write and periods when I don't. I don't feel like anything's really blocked. "Writer's block" sounds so dramatic and worrisome, and I don't worry about it. I know deep down that I'm a writer, and it's just a matter of time until it comes back, and when it does, it'll be good like it's always been.

When you're a touring musician, you're always turning over new rocks and there's always a certain level of tension in your life. The music business, and the travel that comes with it, is stressful, challenging, redundant, exhausting, exciting, and often very depressing. After all of these years, I'm still trying to cope with aspects of it.

I'm always moving forward creatively and don't like stalling, trying to find the perfect snare drum sound.