I don't have that much experience in the studio, but I'm always really uncomfortable when I'm there. You're on the clock and it costs a lot of money.
When we were in Beijing, they were all "it's an honor, you're playing at the oldest rock club in Beijing". And I was all "oh crazy how old is it?" And then were all: "5 years old."Asia is just very different.
I do get labeled as a guitar band, but the only reason is that's the instrument I know how to play. The guitar is serving the song I'm writing. But I'm learning how to play keyboard better now so that'll start serving the song as well; it'll be another flavor. I'm not going to switch it up with big, fat drum machine beats and real swoopy synths, but yeah...
That's kind of the weird thing about Salad Days. I had to block time off from touring and tell my management and label like no press, no nothing. Let me make an album. You guys are running me dead.
You kind of have to be like " What have you been working the last five years for? Why are you complaining?" It's essentially me talking myself out of being a crybaby indie rock butthead.
I thought I knew Elton John, but then it was like, "Woah, Elton's a pimp! He's really amazing." And since Billy and Elton are homies, I'm finally getting it - the two piano boys.
[Making music] only turned into this weird job in the last year or so. Once I figured that out, I was having a blast.
It's so crazy with the Internet and being able to play shows to people who are actually interested in you. I feel so lucky when that happens.
I recorded this album in a windowless room in Brooklyn by myself. I think Chamber of Reflection sums the album up better than Salad Days to tell you the truth.
I've recorded at home since I was a teenager, and I'm able to sit here in my underwear and keep trying different things until something works. I think if I did that in a studio the engineer would be like, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Usually when festivals are really huge it's kind of weird. It's totally fun for me and my band to play in front of a crowd that doesn't necessarily know who we are, but festivals get pretty impersonal when they get super large.
I'm getting paid to tour and travel and I don't have to work a shitty job. And it's weird because you like start getting pissed off about that.
I've never done an album in the same place really - I like to be able to remember where I did every single one of them .
I don't think anybody has a choice. Everybody has to kind of interact with all the craziness right now. I don't like to engage - a lot of people made a point of doing the social media thing, and I think that social media is complete trash, so I treat it like that. I like Instagram. I like the funny photos. Other than that, it's not for me.
I really love a lot of Japanese music, like Ryuichi Sakamoto and this guy I got really into, Tatsuro Yamashita. When I was a little younger, I thought synthesizers meant Kraftwerk, cold, robotic, weird, Autobahn. But these guys are having a lot of fun on these things. Sometimes. Sometimes it's very somber. They could go either way.
I'm not very good at playing piano, so I usually hit chords with my right hand. And those chords came, and I was just singing a little bit.
Over a year before I started recording Salad Days, so I finally sat down and was like I have to do this. And it did feel like a chore. I was looking at it in a completely wrong way, trying to one up myself. Just the typical sophomore album bullshit. The main thing I got out of it is I eventually gave up on all that stuff. I had to re-learn why I liked making music in the first place, why I liked recording in my room all the time. Because it's fun. It's fun for me.
I mean it was weird. But Phoenix watched us every night. But it's like they're not even a band, they're like a corporation. They bring a staff of like 40 people.
I do like touring. Sometimes it's crazy. We're really lucky and we've gone all over the world. You can't complain about getting paid to see the world. I've had to reel myself in a little bit at some points.
I mean, Manhattan is cool. But weird parts, I like that. Jamaica, Queens, that's great.
[My House By The Water] is a nice instrumental track. The sound of the water is from the same place where the front photo was taken. I live really close to the airport, so there's also planes going over. It's kind of to remind me of living in there, because I'm not gonna be living in there for very much longer.
Going on tour, you don't have a lot of time to mull things over. You're just kind of, "Another beer, another show, another song."
I lived in Brooklyn for a year and I moved out to Rockaway Beach. I've been living here for two years now. I put my address on the album, so I have a lot of visitors all the time.
Connan Mockasin from New Zealand. I met him a little while ago, I love his music.
If I feel like I'm going too far in one direction, I just can it. It's a weird thing. Some of my songs might be cheesy; I try and keep it light. It's hard to explain.
