I feel like there are a lot of artists that you could put together that you love, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to make amazing music. Giving an artist a great theme to write about doesn't mean the song's going to be good.

Partly I think it's always a challenge to travel a lot. If I could choose to never travel again but still do all my shows - I mean, who wouldn't want to do that? That's the work aspect of it. Maybe people don't think about it this way, but it makes it feel like a job when you're playing late and getting up really early for a lobby call, and flying around.

Maybe it's easier to have that desire guest-spot-packed album, for example, you're a rapper and you need someone to sing the hook. I guess for us, it just kind of feels like we want to explore ourselves more. That sounds kind of cheesy, but I don't know. I have a lot of artists whose music I have this perfect relationship with, and I don't really feel like I need to meet them or get to know them or write with them because of it.

I think that kind of balance comes with the process of growing together as a band, the Little Dragon. We love to write, we love to create, we love to play live, and I think we love and appreciate what we have together. How that evolves, and how we balance it, is something that's come with time. At the start we were all like, "Tour tour tour. We just want to play. That's all we want to do."

There were choices that we've made as a Little Dragon, that we had to make at the time because we needed the money. I think everything has its context. It is way easier to say no to things now then it was five years ago, for sure. Back then we were grabbing at every opportunity we could just to sustain a name and let people know, "Hello, hello! We're here! Look at us!" It's really sort of taken its time and grown, and it's been a very step-by-step process.

It's always a bit risky, when you put yourself out there with somebody in a collaboration, but I think we learn things every single time, and we come out of it with a new perspective on writing because everyone's process is different. Unfortunately we don't always get to spend time in the studio with those artists - oftentimes it's just sending files online. But both can be liberating and productive in their own way. Some of the best collaborations happen when you're all in a room together.

If you're just starting off as an artist, steal as much inspiration from everything you like, as much as you can. Take from books, from poets, from musicians. Just steal stuff from all over the place and then mix it up to make something of your own.