I was listening to this Ngozi Family record, 45,000 Volts, and it's mostly this guy singing, and then for the choruses, he's doubled. And it's not even harmonized, it's all the same note! And I'm like, "Oh, that sounds epic." I don't know, it's just one of those arbitrary taste things.

A label is like a bank with all these really important relationships, and maybe an aesthetic or a point of view. But if you only want to release two songs, you don't need the guy who can talk to all the retailers, because they're not going to stock two songs.

They even let me do the ads for the album. I definitely want it all to be presented right, but I don't want to be selling. I mean, people do deluxe editions, and I don't even really know how I feel about those yet.

Our day-to-day lives recording and touring aren't that different from those of Metallica, even though the perceived worldview is totally different. So that can be a difficult thing to reconcile sometimes.

Our vocal harmonies started to feel like a cop-out: all group-singing, all the time.

We're covering all our bases so we can do whatever we want next time. That's how we're looking at it, rather than this just being an endless number of album/tour cycles.

Being in Portland is cool. I have some good friends here and the general feeling might be a little more welcoming.