Despite the fact that I trust the people at major labels who tell me that they want to offer me a home as a "stable artist," who can just do what he does for the long haul, time has shown that it rarely works out that way - the bottom line is the bottom line, not mention the threat of mergers and firings and whatnot, and people get dropped.

It's almost weirder sometimes when you don't have a full life experience with someone's ups and downs, knowing what they've been through. Sometimes a loss that just comes out of left field rings in a very weird way when you have actually sort of relied on this small moment with this or that person, as a moment that actually has defined something for you in your life.

I do feel like at the end of anger I have to have something that grounds it.

I actually dream a lot of songs, and I try to be good about voice-memoing ideas.

I'm even old-school Instagram. I'm here for your "What did you have to eat today?" I'm fine with that.

Most of the time I wind up with a sleepily mumbled melodic line, sometimes with words, sometimes not. But then with my waking brain I have to decide whether it's worth...I mean, sometimes it's not worth it.

There's a lot of discussion about whether you should be a good live band or a good studio band. I think you can use the studio to make a great "studio record" and not necessarily have to reproduce exactly that on stage, but still be a great "live band." Having said that, if what you're going for is just the raw capture of your live sound, then that's cool, too - go for it! I enjoy working in the studio, though, and while I try to get near to an approximation of what's going on onstage, it's not my first priority usually.