I remember my mom telling me that when John Belushi died, my dad cried. I remember thinking that was strange as a child, but today, I kind of get it.Collection: Mom
'Reign' is probably the oldest one on the record. I wrote that when I was 19. 'The Dead They Don't Come Back,' which is the last song on the album, I wrote when I was 20, and 'Harlem River' I just wrote last year. It spans from 2007 to 2012.
When I think about the most exotic, beautiful places, Porto is at the front of my mind. It's incredible, man. You have an idea of what Europe is like as an American, and people talk about Paris, Berlin and Stockholm, which are all great, but it wasn't until I went to Porto that I felt that idea of this exotic, beautiful, timeless place.
I had a very easy middle class upbringing and never had to worry about anything. But my parents came from nothing and from broken homes, and their stories were always very interesting.
My dad grew up in western Nebraska. I'd visit all the time as a kid, and it's very much like the Wild West. It felt to me like a cowboy movie. Stuff like that made me become this dreamer at a young age.
I'm very impressionable: I get very taken away by stories and certain feelings. With writing, sometimes I want to feel like a character.
I'm a really big Fiona Apple fan, and more times than not, when I put her on in the car, people are surprised. I think they associate her less as a songwriter and more as a '90s MTV generation artist.
My hair - it's baby thin and feathery and drives me crazy no matter what I do with it. It's weird because you see people with thicker hair that just kind of stays put, but if I'm in any sort of weather, I look like Bill Murray in 'Kingpin' when it starts to all come unleashed.
Anytime I'm locked out of somewhere with another person, I can usually pick the lock successfully. And then I feel like James Bond.
'Rock Bottom Riser' by Smog - I was just in Europe, and my jet lag never really went away. I wasn't sleeping very much. Then one night, my girlfriend saw a Bill Callahan show in L.A. and took a video of that song and sent it to me. I was just listening to it over and over - it was comforting.
I write all the time, and I write a lot of songs, but before I started putting out records, those songs always just ended up on stuff that I did with The Babies.
I feel like 'Harlem River' was me putting one foot out the door of New York, and 'Still Life' is between Point A and Point B. It's the grey area.
One of my first observations about New York that I was so fascinated with was that you'd be at a stoplight, and you're with everybody; there's a homeless dude and some weird celebrity and a cop and someone who looks exactly like you.
I had a lot of jobs in New York. I worked in a cafe, and I did bike delivery, and I was a mover. And I babysat, which was really cool in some cases and really insane in others.
I wanted to write a song called '#1234' that would act as a homage to The Ramones.
I do not know what kind of relationship Jim Carroll and The Ramones had, though I imagine they all knew each other, as they ran in the same scene.
When I first moved to New York in 2006, I spent most of my time hanging out at and going to shows at a punk house in Crown Heights called The Fort where, amongst many roommates, my friend Johnny lived. Johnny loves The Germs, the legendary L.A. punk band fronted by the late, great Darby Crash.
One of my favorite movie characters is Mother Sister from Spike Lee's 'Do The Right Thing.' It is such a beautiful name, and she is such a beautiful character, Mother Sister, the all-seeing eye over the block.
On 'City Music', I wanted there to be grit, and I wanted it to be loose, and I wanted there to be mistakes.
To be alive at all is so crazy, to experience the wide spectrum of feelings and emotions is so wild, but we have nothing else to compare it to, so it becomes normal.
I just love the idea of never seeing a city before and seeing the glow in the distance, and it just looking frightening, like you're driving into a fire.
You're at LaGuardia, and you get in a cab, and it's taking you into Brooklyn, and you're on the BQE, and you can see the skyline, the whole skyline, and it's so beautiful.
'Harlem River' is about the Harlem River in uptown Manhattan. I don't know much to say about it. I came upon that river a couple of years ago. I was doing a walk the length of Manhattan, from the top to the bottom, and I had never seen that river before.
'Reign' - and this might sound cheesy, but it's a dream I had. I dreamt everything that happened in that song, woke up, and wrote the song.
As far as dream venues, I've played all the venues I'd love to play.
I love Baltimore. It is a city with a giant heart and has remained one of my favorite places to keep returning to on tour. It is unique and beautiful, and you can't mistake it for anywhere else in the world - Baltimore is one hundred percent Baltimore.
Paris has always shown a lot of love towards my music, and I am very grateful.
On my first European solo tour, I was selling maybe 50 tickets a city until I showed up in Paris and heard the show was already at 150 tickets, which, at the time, really blew my mind and took me by complete surprise.
I always considered myself a songwriter, but I didn't move to New York with plans of doing that; it just sort of happened. Everyone thinks that I moved to New York strictly to play music, but I totally just happened to fall into playing with Woods, and it all got started from there. I just went to New York to hang out.
My favorite songwriters are all solo artists.
I grew up in the Midwest and never really felt at home there, and when I got to New York, I was really fearless. I feel like I really fell in love with the the place. But then, it's a place where your world is really big at first and then becomes really small. I found myself hardly leaving my neighborhood, like I made it into a small town.
'Singing Saw' was exactly seeing through my eyes; 'City Music' let me write from somebody else's perspective, somebody living in New York.
A lot of what I've written that's made its way onto my records I've written in Kansas, which is interesting because I've never written about Kansas. But I go have these experiences. and I'll be back at my parents house, and it's like I'm in a safe incubator.
When I'm out having the experiences, that's exactly what I'm doing: having the experiences. Then I can later reflect and write.
I had a lot of jobs in New York. I worked in a café and I did bike delivery and I was a mover. And I babysat, which was really cool in some cases and really insane in others.Collection: Jobs
There was never a thought of career in my brain ever for anything.Collection: Careers
The ideal pre-show meal I think is pho, the Vietnamese soup. It's very light and good for you, and then the broth is great for the throat.Collection: Thinking
A great day on tour would be if I would say a two-hour drive, so you can wake up and you don't have to leave right away. You can go get breakfast somewhere nice that someone recommends in the town, and it turns out to be good. Then you can kind of check out the town, someone might recommend you to a cool thrift store, a record store, a nice park or something. You can have some time to yourself.Collection: Nice
I've put out kind of a lot of albums and people seem to like it and the crowds keep getting bigger and bigger, so I think maybe I could make a life out of it.Collection: Thinking
I guess now I view music as my career. I want to do it forever, regardless of whether or not it's my means of living.Collection: Mean
I didn't understand how to get a practice space or buy gear - I never thought I could do any of that - let alone get in front of people and play the songs.Collection: Song
I was never really seeking to play music. I knew I wanted to do it, but I think I wasn't seeking it out because it seemed so abstract to me.Collection: Thinking
One of my first observations about New York that I was so fascinated with was that you'd be at a stoplight and you're with everybody; there's a homeless dude and some weird celebrity and a cop and someone who looks exactly like you. You're on foot and everyone is at street level and eye-to-eye. I think that's what's special about New York, because there's no hierarchy, there's no discrimination.Collection: New York
I write all the time, and I write a lot of songs, but before I started putting out records those songs always just ended up on stuff that I did with The Babies.Collection: Song