Like any band, including mine, there's a comfort zone that's hard to escape. You kind of need an outsider to tell you that. You think it's your vocabulary, but it's a cocoon that's safe. Producers are supposed to tell you to try things a different way.

The Tragically Hip, more so than any other band I've worked with, approach their work like a team. This might sound way too pat, but they're like a great hockey team: all five of them have their roles. They go at their shows like an athletic event; they're in it to win it, and they'll lay it out there on the proverbial ice in order to win and get the crowd on their side. You can't do that when you just throw a band together. There's a sixth sense there that makes it easy.

It seems silly, but it mattered to Gord Downie. I don't know if I necessarily felt like it had to be one or the other, but he really wanted that engagement: "If you think it should be 'the' then tell me why it should be 'the.' " 'Uh, okay, well...' He was really serious.

Like any band, including mine, there's a comfort zone that's hard to escape. You kind of need an outsider to tell you that. You think it's your vocabulary, but it's a cocoon that's safe. Producers are supposed to tell you to try things a different way.

Gord Downie is extraordinary. It's safe to say there's nobody like that guy that I've ever come across.

I can't think of very many people who work as hard at the craft of songcraft as Gord Downie does. It was life or death. Every syllable was important.

Another hard thing that Gord Downie makes easy: singing ironically. If you don't do it right, you come off like a snarky asshole or the whole thing just falls apart on its own. He has the ability to imbue something ironic with great seriousness, which is the only way to really make it work.