At some point I decided I didn't want to learn any more guitar technique. I was at that level where the next mountain there was to climb was Van Halen and I didn't really like Van Halen.

Obviously it always takes longer to finish an album than you think it will. That's always going to be the case. Everything takes longer than you think it will. Occasionally things happen fast.

I like the idea that a song can be something that you can lean on, both for the songwriter and for the person who hears the song.

I wanted to make an album where every song is kind of interacting - where you can't tell what's the string arrangement and what's the song. I guess that came out of going to college, majoring in music, studying classical music, and even as a kid, being really drawn to classical music.

I was lucky to have a guitar teacher who asked me what I wanted to learn. I brought in "High & Dry" by Radiohead and "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows and he was like, "Alright, I'm gonna teach you these, but you're also gonna learn some stuff that I want you to learn." He taught me Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, so I was getting the technical stuff and the fun stuff.

We've always said that our band is pretty much an open system and there's no rules governing anything... so who knows what the future will hold?

I think summer, at least as I've experienced it, can be joyous but it can also be tough emotionally. Physically, it can be hot to the point of being unbearable and I think you want to capture that frustration, but also the release.