I like to think that location, travel, etc, is a launching point for purely imagining.

I love the community and the entertainment too much. I'm used to it - it's what I saw first.

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.

I didn't realize how different our band's senses of melody actually were. I would write a part that just made perfect sense to me, but for them, it was mind-boggling. Likewise, they could play stuff with relative ease that I never could have. If there was something lost in translation melodically, it wouldn't work at all - we'd just be 17 people in a giant room staring awkwardly at each other. When that happened, I'd go home, figure out what was wrong, fix it, and then return to smooth sailing.

I write one step at a time, always finishing off the part I'm working on before even thinking about the next part. I need to hear it all together before deciding what goes next. I even mix before moving on...in other words, I write by recording.

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'd been living out of a suitcase since I was 17 years old, and it just got to the point where it was ridiculous. Besides, it was really hurting everything I was trying to do in music; to feel so consistently homeless was no way to endure touring and stress.