I had been using a 4-track and a digital 8-track in the '90s, and it was this huge complicated thing. But GarageBand is right there.
I feel like a lot of times, when making a one-song collab with someone, it's easy for one person to not be fully invested. I guess you'd call that 'mailing it in.' But when you say 'This is our album,' then all parties have a reason to make it as good as possible, and the goal becomes seeing what we can do together as a unit.
It's a strange position to be in. Not only the fact that I'm trying to live off work that is personal, but how you get the money for that is racing around the country and smiling for people and selling the record, you know what I mean?
I've performed in Japan before, as well as many other non-English speaking countries. I find you really just have to be a bit more animated than usual. Call-and-response routines work well, if they are simple. Otherwise, I just dance around like a circus monkey and hope the crowd feels it.
I just write notes all day on my phone, and when I write songs it becomes a patchwork of these smaller notes that I had, mixed with stuff in the moment.
My brother came home from college with a Mountain Goats cassette and I was like, 'What is this?' The lyrics were crazy to me. I'd never heard anything like it.
I don't like to do the same songs every night for a week. I just... it's boring and tiring and frustrating basically.
Most artists - painters or writers - I think create out of stress or negative situations. Look at rock music. It's about getting things off of your chest, and it's a means of venting in many ways. That's what my work is about.
Finding something new that I know I've never done before is the best feeling I know, and when I get there it's all worth it.
I've traveled a lot, I've rapped a lot. I like to think that's all in the toolbox to be tapped into when I need it.
When I do solo material I definitely tend to overthink it. I make a lot of rules for myself that are a little bit arbitrary and... it's just painful.
I had written rap songs in the early '90s and even did a couple homemade rap songs with my brother in like '88 or '89, but it was just like... I don't even know how to say it. Just plain rap. I was just rapping about whatever, there was no real style or direction, it was just semi-braggadocious rhymes that probably imitated 100 other rappers.