– The record (Hospice) itself is sort of intended to follow a story. The way a lot of the songs were written, there was sort of an overabundance of lyrics, and that was what was needed to explain the story.
– I wanted that relationship (in Hospice) to be sort of the starting point for a record about manipulation, and about mental abuse, and the kind of destructive relationships that are both self-destructive and destructive to the other person. And kind of the way that guilt can play into that, dealing with death. Death is a very guilty subject. So is sickness. And in the same way a hospice worker takes care of a patient, ease them into the process of dying, I think people find themselves taking care of the person they’re with.
– We started forming while this record was being recorded. So I was kind of writing it a little separate from that, and it was while we were all starting to play together. There were no vocals and no lyrics attached to it (at the beginning). It was really just like this sound project.
– For the most part, I’m not so into music where the vocals are the very very front, and everything else is sort of background music. And it’s the kind of thing where if yo- were to take the vocals away, it’d be sort of plain and repetitive. I wanted the two to complement one another. If I listen back to our music, I’m not thrilled to hear myself singing. It’s sort of like when yo- hear your voice on a tape recorder, it’s kind of like that. For me, I enjoy writing lyrics, I enjoy writing the vocal parts, but I think I enjoy listening to the musical part of it more. The story, it needed that lyrical structure, but it needed the instrumentation to sort of compliment that, to sort of emphasize certain elements of the story, to sort of enhance the mood in certain areas, and sort of be a reflection of what was being talked about in the lyrics.
– I moved to New York, and the sort of hiding away is what the record was about. The events within the record are sort of the explanation behind that. The record was made afterward, the record was made coming out of that and reconnecting with people, and becoming more involved and getting a band together.
– Not in my wildest dreams did I expect what happened to happen. Everyday is a surprise, and it kind of keeps going more and more. And I mean, it’s a very surreal thing to turn something so negative in your life into something that has totally changed it and made it just become such a positive thing. I’m really surprised that happened, and I’m a little skeptical that it happened. Maybe it’s a little too perfect that kind of circle would happen.
– We’ve actually started working on new stuff, and for the past month, I’ve just been working everyday on it. It’s definitely different, and I think part of that is we’re a real band now. Also, the kinds of things I want to be writing about don’t entail the same thing. In a way, I was a lot younger writing Hospice, going through different things. I just feel like a different person since then, and I don’t want to be trying to recreate that, trying to force it. I think more importantly we’re just going to try to make an honest record.
