Everyone grew up with a piano in their living room, so rocking out on the piano was accessible – it wasn’t an upper-class thing. Now pianos have become very much a piece of furniture.
I drink a lot, probably too much. My scene while writing lyrics is always a bottle of scotch and stacks of note cards, pencil and pencil sharpener. I throw around note cards and drink.
I have manic energy. What can be done about it? I don’t know what to say sometimes. I’m professional in public, but I like to stay inside and be a hermit.
It’s like being in the position of – in half of the industry’s mind, you’re kind of a cult-following, independent rocker. And on the other hand, you’re a sellout. But neither one of them are right.
To the modern ear, it seems soft. When you hear it against other things, it seems vulnerable. Lyrically and musically, though, this is more subtle. And, yes, it’s asking a lot of someone who’s used to being hit over the head with bright neon to listen to this.
In many ways, I’ve chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don’t like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.
But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that’s the center of it, that is it. It’s almost like there’s something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you’re a songwriter that sings your material.
