“Between every record, we all split off in our own world and we all end up listening to usually pretty different music on our own. We come together not really knowing what the other people having been really listening to and what’s been influencing them.”

There were a lot of fences and walls existing in my life, literally and figuratively, and that was really not indicative of the kind of person that I’d always been. So, when I moved back to Seattle, the first thing I said was, “I will never live in fear again.”

I’d like the songs to be more storytelling, but also have the turns of phrase within them that would hopefully distance my writing from the pack.

We wanted to be like R.E.M., but the reality is that 15 years after R.E.M. was putting out those records, the playing field had changed drastically as well.

We would scoff at the idea of a nice studio. “Why would you want to go to a nice studio? Oh wow, they have really expensive gear. Ooh, that’s really fancy. Well we’ve got an eight-track. We’ve got it going on here.”

As a songwriter, I’m not necessarily writing about myself or my life.

Our band is very polarizing. There are people who absolutely can’t stand us, and people who absolutely can’t live without us. I’d rather spark those kind of polar-opposite feelings than have people be indifferent.

Hall & Oates is one of the few musical groups as satisfying now as it was back then. There’s something incredibly musically satisfying about their songs. Nothing has diminished my love for them.

I like writing on piano and a computer, and a lot of ‘Plans’ came out of samples and vocal lines.

The songwriting of Hall & Oates is deceptively complex. There are a number of key changes that pass you by as you’re listening to the song because they’re so seamless and clever.

To set the record straight for the God knows millionth time, we certainly didnt sign to Atlantic just for the money.

I have always been very open and earnest about some things in my life, some things that are not directly in my life, but they’re twirling around me at the time.

There were two recording studios in Bellingham. One was really expensive, a “nice studio.” We were at the point where we were young and irreverent.

As you go through your life, you make friendships, you break friendships, you have relationships. Music is the one thing I’ve always been able to rely on.

A lot of the material is about the inevitable disappointment people feel as they move through life, and things don’t feel the way they expect. No experience will ever match up to the idealized version in your mind.

Around that same time I started running. I never saw myself as the kind of person who would become a runner. It seemed unfathomable to me that I would ever run three miles, let alone 26.2.

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time.

My debut album, ‘Forget the World,’ is all about not listening to the negativity around you and to continue to do what you love, no matter what people think.

When you’re walking down the street or in the car just listening to the radio, and you’re, like , ‘Oh, that’s my song.’ You want to say, ‘Hey Mom!’ That never changes.

If you listen long enough you can hear my skin grow tough love is painful to the touch must be made of stronger stuff.

People talking without speaking, People listening without hearing, Sounds of Silence.

A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart.

When I listen to what I did under the influence – 10 years of work – I don’t think it either enhanced or impaired me. It didn’t have that much to do with it.

I was in awe sometimes listening to Mick Taylor . Everything was there in his playing – the melodic touch, a beautiful sustain and a way of reading a song.

I feel I should try to reveal. When you hit it right, you produce an emotional response in the listener that can be cathartic. When you’re wrong, you’re soppy, sentimental.