It's a beautiful idea to focus on how everything is temporary and always in flux. It may feel bad now, but it will feel good later, and vice versa. To write about those things brings this satisfying feeling as a creative person. There's a lot of music out there that's like, "I'm so mad! I'm sad! I'm into skulls and crossbones and the color black," and that's just meaningless and shallow. So much of metal is about that and it's hard to find metal that is substantial and meaningful in terms of its content.

I am still not taking my "career" in music for granted. It is constantly surprising that it works. Generally my thinking about the future has this assumption of an impending apocalypse.

When I read War and Peace in Norway, really far away from humanity for a long time, it was such an amazing, affirming blast of "humanity" in all forms. It totally cracked my mind-nut open and rainbows shot out. I loved humanity and being alive, rather than wanting to bury my head in the snow.

I've been thinking a lot about Anacortes and what it's like to be here, though I'm not trying to get people to move here - I would hate that.

I'm not ... pumped about being alive. But I don't think about suicide ever. I have a kid. I think that's just an automatic shut-off of that idea. In fact, I just instantly went into the necessities of parenting, and I think it's been very good for grief. Because it's a reality check, I guess. I have very real tasks that need immediate attention all the time.

People's attentions spans are getting shorter and shorter. I don't want to cater to that necessarily but, just for myself, it feels like more than 40 minutes of music is too much.

It's nice to have a band that can adapt to whatever show we're in, so we can play on a big stage or a house show.