You kind of figure out what you're doing as you go along.
I think we get on with living our lives like everybody else does. Where we're at in music is trying to explain what's going around us either directly or by analogy and trying to create a parallel, an analog, sometimes musical, sometimes dramatic, that might be truthful.
I think initially the impetus for doing stuff yourself comes from your love of other music.
I think central to what we do is thinking about what's our role, how does this idea of being a band and getting on the stage and playing stuff.
In my experience as a record producer, the people who most get involved are the people from independent labels who feel they have more to do with it; it's their "baby" kind of thing.