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

I feel like when the songwriting slows, I'd love to help others with their records. If it's something I really believe in, it's worth the effort.

The music business, and the travel that comes with it, is stressful, challenging, redundant, exhausting, exciting, and often very depressing.

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.

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.

I don't make demos. I don't have the interest or the energy or the time.

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.