I never sit and fill a journal with lyrics. Most of the time I'm trying to write a feeling, not a story. I'm not necessarily trying to describe the details of a place or event so much as the feeling of the thing. It is a kind of weird alchemy that is elusive until it feels right.

There are records that you just sink into. They coincide with what you’re going through and become an ally. If our records do that for people, that’s the greatest compliment I could ever receive. That’s one of the reasons making music is so important to me, because there’s a very strange emotional reach. For me—more than books or movies or other things—music is like a mainline to your heart.

I don't want somebody telling my daughter who she can marry, or what she can do with her body. That's what was at stake.

The last thing you want to do is write songs about being in a band.

I'm trying to figure out how to record at home because I have a tiny house and a seven-year-old and my wife also works at home. So I can't work in the house because she's trying to write, so I pitched a tent in the backyard. I'm literally trying to record in the tent.

It takes us a long time to write a song that we all really like, so it makes sense that it would take a while for the listener to get there, too.

Not all the songs are real events, but I do write about stuff that is close to my heart and it comes out one way or another.