Someone once said that "The Waste Land" was a scum of poetry floating on a sea of footnotes. That resonated with me, because that's kind of what I was doing lyrically for a while. I was being very referential in a way. I would drop in these little phrases or ideas that were sort of portholes into a whole bigger realm of thought or whatever, that would work within the song, but that you could also poke through into a bigger discussion.

The obsessive documentation is itself adjacent to hyper-consumption in our society. The desire to just have everything all the time and adjacent to that is - it might be a little hokey but - a certain loss of identity that then only gets sort of found or ascribed to these moments that are documented. If so much of your experience is devoted to the thought of documentation, you're already sort of spinning out this narrative from this moment that you are attempting to control instead of just experiencing it.

You play the one song that people want to hear the most every night, and for every audience that's a special thing. And usually that translates back to you.

My "degree" has done nothing for me at all. But that I've learned - the critical thought processes I've tried to keep sharp - these things were furthered along by college. I hated so much of my life "at university," but I also loved so much of it, and the things that I loved about it have kept me in a sort of "scholarly pursuit" to this day. Maybe it messed me up because I believe that there are things like truth and beauty, and that art and discussion can help us find them and enhance our lives.

When you're traveling on a body of songs that you have played for many, many years, for most nights of your life - I'm sure you've experienced this yourself - it's not that every night is not it's own thing. It is.

I am always thinking music.

I gotta make a living somehow, and make ends meet. I accept the idea of having a retirement.