Musician

I think one of the toughest things is that balancing act of trying to maintain relationships while being on the road.

Music can connect people on an intimate level. What Josh and I are trying to do is represent anyone who has some of the questions that we have.

We know in order to get where we want to be and do what we want to be doing, sometimes we have to do what we don't feel like doing. It takes hard work, and the band name is a constant reminder of that.

It's all right to fail. You just have to get up again and try. That's the bottom line.

We just want to outdo ourselves every time we come back somewhere.

From the beginning, my songwriting was from writing in a journal; it was completely unfiltered. I don't know if I really meant to show everyone this side of me, but when I saw how people resonated to the things I was saying, some of the questions I was asking, I realized I was not alone.

There's been many times when a producer will say, 'I don't think you want to say that.' We were told we shouldn't be so brutally honest about songwriting or radio or the industry.

It is true that if you hear our music described, it sounds unappealing. I used to laugh and agree with people when they said it didn't make any sense.

You kind of have to celebrate the moment that you get to create something that you love that falls into the parameters of a 3-minute-and-20-second song, to try to be creative inside of those parameters.

I had to make 500 shots every day, and when my mom wasn't looking, I'd get up closer to the basket and do lay-ups and count them, and she'd be at the back window at the kitchen and knock. Then I'd have to go back and shoot from longer.

For us, we make a song, and if we like it, it goes on a record.

I didn't know that there were many rules in music when I first started writing.

We come from a sensory-overload culture, and so we wonder if one guy on drums and one guy dancing around is enough. Adding guys was something we always were curious about. We decided for this run specifically to stay a two-piece. In the future, we definitely could add members.

When you write music that expresses doubt or concern, or talks about some of the darker things that a developing human goes through, people will come out of the woodwork to listen to someone else say it out loud.

I guess when I first started writing music, I really had no idea if anyone was ever going to hear what I was writing and almost no intention of people hearing it. So, it was kind of this journal. It was pretty unfiltered.

I don't love the way I look. Nobody does, and if they do, I don't want to be that person's friend. But we all know what we're insecure about. The question I had as I was writing was, 'How are these things affecting the way I live? How am I compensating because I don't like this about myself? What do I do to cover it up?'

I've forgotten what it feels like to be in one place for more than a day... But we signed up for this. This is our dream. We sat down and said this is what we want to do, play music and touring.

You hear about our conservative background and know that we're Christian guys, but we're not timid at all. I will take anyone on when it comes to outworking them or putting on a better show or standing up for people who are being put down.

I like candles. It helps cover up for the fact that I have four male roommates.

There's variables at every single gig. I look forward to those every night. We have a lot of things that happen in our show, a lot of people from the outside watching the show might think it's one schtick after the next. We promised ourselves we have to be there mentally. We have to be aware. We are forced to be aware.