It took me some time to join the various streams of making music that was technically good and making music that made me feel good.

It took me some time to join the various streams of making music that was technically good and making music that made me feel good.

I feel connected to every song on this record [ 'Modern Vampires Of The City' ], but yeah I think there's something special about 'Young Lion'. It's pretty different from any song that we've had before because the vocals are kind of between two different very simple instrumental piano melodies and it's almost like something that we call a vignette, it's sort of like a miniature.

I would say I was a little bit outgoing, a little bit shy. I was definitely much more shy than my brother. I was young - age six. I was really drawn to music because my brother started playing instruments and I wanted to be at his level, even though I was younger.

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.

There's a line in the Arthur Russell documentary where his partner talks about how Arthur is really interested in process. He never felt like anything was finished, and he would even work on things after they'd been released. I definitely relate to that.

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.