There was always a unique Beirut sound, it was always there, and so this time I just dove straight into that, instead of daydreaming and wandering.

I'm writing songs about New York. A lot of them carry the names of neighborhoods in Long Island. Maspeth, Montauk. I'm getting into the idea of a F. Scott Fitzgerald-esque Long Island back when New York was...New York.

As a teenager and a young adult, I never felt like my own story was interesting enough to tell, so I always wrote lyrics from someone else's perspective - told someone else's story.

I dropped out of high school and I tried to go to community college for a little while. I can't be a student. I always hated that lifestyle.

After so many years of whispery, DIY vocals, there's this new generation of voices that are really starting to burst through the seams.

The more I know, the more I realise I don't know. And the more I realise I'll never truly understand.

In some ways, I feel like I've been such a dilettante for so many years, just picking up instruments and stretching myself so thin.