I never sit and fill a journal with lyrics. Most of the time I'm trying to write a feeling, not a story. I'm not necessarily trying to describe the details of a place or event so much as the feeling of the thing. It is a kind of weird alchemy that is elusive until it feels right.
It is the melody and the rhythm that are by far the most important and then words and imagery and stuff, story bits will start to stick to a melody and that is the way I write.
Not all the songs are real events, but I do write about stuff that is close to my heart and it comes out one way or another.
When I have just sat down and tried to write the lyrics of a song, usually about half of it sounds like bullshit. I just have to go away from something and come back to it again later. I do a lot of editing and switching around and putting little pieces together to get the right mood and personality, and it takes me forever to get a song finished.
It takes us a long time to write a song that we all really like, so it makes sense that it would take a while for the listener to get there, too.
We were always in the shadows of the stuff that was getting more attention. So people learned to listen to us slowly over time. And, frankly, we learned how to listen to ourselves. It takes us a long time to write a song that we all really like, so it makes sense that it would take a while for the listener to get there, too.
I can only write songs when somebody gives me some water to swim in. Otherwise, I'm a fish on the beach.
I'm trying to figure out how to record at home because I have a tiny house and a seven-year-old and my wife also works at home. So I can't work in the house because she's trying to write, so I pitched a tent in the backyard. I'm literally trying to record in the tent.
The last thing you want to do is write songs about being in a band.
