I'm 45 and I don't have time to spend two years of my life bringing in producers and dragging the record around the planet.

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

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

When I get compared to artists like Jose Gonzalez or Bon Iver, I can't help but think, "I've been doing this since they were in third grade."

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.

Like many musicians, it's my roots in music, playing cover songs. I've done probably a lot more covers than the average person who does what I do, but I'm very proud of it, and I do feel like I really bring a lot artistically to these covers.