Music is one of the few things I'm relatively good at, one of the things I understand a little better than everything else.
The minute you feel like you've completed something you lose that momentum. I've learned how to avoid that. That's the bottom line.
I'm a perfectionist; there's always something we need to improve upon, and I think that's a really healthy model for artistic growth and progressing. I'm not ready for a masterpiece.
People think that since we're on a major label, all of a sudden everyone's telling us what to do and it's really not like that at all. They're just saying you should tour because you can finally get out of debt and everyone's coming out to the shows we sold.
I don't think people talk about mental illness a lot, but they need to know it's OK to talk about how they are feeling. People are afraid of telling the truth because they think it's going to hurt everyone around them. I've kept so much inside that I've literally lost it. I wish more people would get help when they feel like they need it-- not just to look to medicine, but to the support of others.
I've told people that I don't see myself living very long. That really upsets them, but I'm just being honest.
I became really creative around the time I started understanding that people could be creative with music and that that was allowed. I stated taking piano lessons at age five, but I never did what my piano teacher told me to do. I would just do whatever I wanted.
I mean, I am a little different from the band in that I, I'm pretty much an isolated writer. I don't associate myself with a lot of other writers, unless like, I'll write someone like a fan letter, and we start talking from then on, or like a songwriter that I like, you know.
I just desperately wanted to be happy again in a way that wasn't forced. I wanted to feel like I accomplished something. I did this. I finished this record. I'm doing all the promo. I'm doing everything that I said I was going to do. I really wanted to be happy and normalized and I was tired of people saying I was volatile. I'm not. I'm a pretty normal person. I have problems like anyone else but I've worked so hard to be OK and I don't think that I gave myself enough credit for that.
I hated the blog hype and how fast everything was happening. It didn't feel natural to me. But at the same time, what's more natural than thousands of people sharing your music because they just really like it?
I think there are things that need changing obviously. I think there are things that I think we overdid on the first record, I think there are things we didn't do enough of on the first record. And as a writer and directing this project, I know when to pull off now.
