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.

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.

I like the idea that a song can be about a romantic relationship, but it can also about a relationship to your career, or a relationship to your city. It can be about a person, but at the same time it can be about a situation.

It's hard to say how time factors into your work, because sometimes things will come to you very quickly, but it will take years for the ideas to be gestating in your mind.

As far as the lyrics go, I think I was negotiating a moment in my life where I didn't feel happy. I think I had some existential frustration and I was wrestling with that on a few different levels. I was feeling like I wanted to change a lot of things.

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 did take guitar lessons as a teenager, though, and I started to teach myself how to play everything I could play on the guitar on piano, so I had a really weird, non-traditional route to proficiency. I think it probably helped me come at things from a new angle.