I'm doing more deep listening, which is part of the role or job of the songwriter. I think with a lot of songwriting, songs sing themselves to you tonally and also lyrically. And it's not necessarily your own visual memories that are writing the song. It's like there are words that you can catch out there and you have to be able to see and hear them.

I identify as being an independent artist. I think people often forget that Indie is actually short for independent. For me, the word has a meaning more than what it connotes from an industry standpoint.

I have a hard time really claiming my place as a songwriter or as doing anything of import really because I feel like I'm tooting my own horn in a way.

My identity is mostly as a songwriter and lyricist and singer. I also have a lot of production ideas but I have my own limitations in terms of what instruments I'm actually proficient at and what I can do myself, so I really love working with people on the production end; just really going for it with orchestration and instrumentation and production. That's where I see myself going: maintaining my integrity and abilities as a songwriter, but applying it to different contexts, to where I can put on a huge feathered costume and roll around in the ocean.

You can choose not to be a performing musician. You can choose to just be a recording artist. But then you run into the problem of trying to earn a living and balancing the time that you spend working on your creative efforts to just getting the bills paid. You can go off the grid and live in a cabin and make whatever art you want and also provide all the sustenance you need and not interact with anybody else.

You're born and then you're on your own, you start having relationships, you're developing relationships to the world and your wider community, and then disappointing things happen.

There is a very palpable difference for me between some of my earlier songs and where my later work has gone. If I were making my dream set list for tonight's show, I'm probably not going to include a whole bunch of stuff from the album that I made when I was 23.