The first ones I played were in New York at Joe's Pub; I played four shows, but I did something like 30 interviews and a couple radio shows in the mornings and completely blew out my voice. It kind of sucked.
You're always trying to find new stuff and new inspiration. If you don't really push and you don't try something that feels exciting, then it's not worth doing.
I feel really personally connected to all of the songs, so stepping back is really hard.
I used to put the vocals on top and piece it together. Now I start with the vocals and the string parts I write; the drums are kind of an afterthought. And who knows, maybe that will get boring, but right now that's the most interesting way for me.
You look back and see pictures of yourself, or hear an old song, and you know where that came from or why you were working on that - but you don't want to do that again. You don't necessarily hate it, but you're a very different person now, so, in that way you do.
You feel like half of your life is a vacation when you go to these Barcelona music festivals and have all day to sound check or go to the pool.
Traveling makes a vacation lose all appeal. You would never want to take the family to a European city. You travel a lot, but it's a job.
Everyone in Seattle is a total pussy when it comes to snow. The whole city shut down, the place looked like an apocalyptic movie.
I never want to travel while I'm on vacation anymore. The only vacations I want to take now are ones where I just go and sit somewhere.
I write songs now I look at my strengths and I start there. In The Walkmen, we'd start with the live stuff.
The funny thing is that the studio that we recorded in was the same studio that Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole used to warm up their voices in before they went across the street to CBS Radio. The owner has preserved it exactly the way it was in 1925. It was such a perfect coincidence that we were doing music inspired by that stuff in that room. It was incredible.
I felt like I could get away with calling it Black Hours. That could easily be the most depressing record ever written, but because there is this sense of fun throughout the whole thing I felt like I could get away with it. Like "5 A.M."; that song's in a minor key and I'm just wailing away and it could have been just wallowing depression, but it's not.
I really don't feel as connected to Heaven as I do to the ones where I was there from start to finish. And on this record I was there for every moment.
I was staying at my friend's house and he told me about the drug Prednisone. It took me 14 years to discover it. And there are a lot of times that would have helped me out over the years. I can't believe I'd never even heard of it, though.
My friends just kept joking about all the horrible physical side effects [of Prednisone ]. I can only imagine that something that works that well has got to be bad for you.
The great thing is that when you hire string players you always get really great players. I don't know why that is.
I'm always writing music. I sort of do it obsessively, for good or for bad. It's good that it keeps me going, but it's bad because it really is sort of like an obsession where you can't stop sometimes and it'll keep you up at night and ruin your weekend.
I was writing music when we finished the last Walkmen record, Heaven, and a few of these songs may have even been started before Heaven was done. With The Walkmen we all wrote a lot of stuff alone, but then we'd start collaborating with each other.
When we got to the step when we'd normally start collaborating, we started having these talks about how it was not worth getting together. Getting together just didn't feel very inspired, and doing it alone did.
Ironically, I like working with people.
When I got to L.A. I woke up and I was losing my voice because of the dry air. It was like, "Oh my god, this is going to be Joe's Pub all over again."
I'm really not into the idea of just faking songs with a synthesizer. That just isn't the music I'm making at all.
When you spend your whole life traveling it does get really tedious and exhausting.
When you're in your twenties you always think that 30 is a long ways off, and maybe you'll have things in line when you hit that number - maybe own a house or be married.
When I finally got to 30, I'll admit that there was a little anxiety, but at the same time I actually really liked it.
