It's weird with making music - you can have no vibe while you're working on something and recognize that the music was special afterwards. And it happens to me while I am working on my own music, as well! One minute you hate it, and then a few years you're obsessed with a little beat you did, and the opposite.

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.

Keeping your sanity is sometimes stalling the business aspect of things and being OK with saying no to certain things. Sometimes I just need to be home and write in my diary every day and take long walks. Or just dancing - I have a few dancer friends, and I go to their places and drink tea, and put on these long electronic mixes; maybe smoke a joint, you know? I like to be in nature, and swim in the Swedish sea, and spend time with family.

I think we're a little bit protective in that way. You're always trying to balance between what's spreading the word about the band and what's good money and what's a shitty look. Is this good for the longevity of the band? Do people even care these days? We care, but do we care more about the money? We've had a lot of discussions about things. It gets us into a lot of fights, but it also makes you question your own morals in a really good way.

I never listen to any of my music after it comes out, unless I hear it in a cafe or whatever. I'll think, "I forgot how it was so slow or how minimal it felt compared to how it's become live," because you start having a relationship to the songs live. After an album is finished, I really let go.

To foster creativity, I think a little pressure can be good, but stress isn't good. Knowing that you have a defined window of time and you're going to dedicate your attention to it is a positive - but you can't think of it as needing a track that's going to change your life.

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."