Let The Poets Cry Themselves To Sleep,

I've Thought About The Idea Of, 'can Happiness And Creativity Co-exist?' So Much Of What I've Done, I Think, Has Been Based On Being Dissatisfied Or Incomplete Or Lonely. The Answer Is, 'there Isn't An Answer, Necessarily.

You Can't Manufacture Inspiration, So A Lot Of It Is Still A Waiting Game For Me. There's Still A Lot Of Mystery To Songwriting. I Don't Have A Method That I Can Go Back To - They Either Come Or They Don't.

On Every Bright Eyes Record, There's Some Kind Of Sound Collage That Begins It. Some Of Them Have Dialogue, Some Don't. I Like It Because It Can Kind Of Slow Down The Attention Span A Bit. It's A Way To Draw You In To The Rest Of The Record.

We Made Love On The Living Room Floor With The Noise In The Background Of A Televised War And In That Defeaning Pleasure I Thought I Heard Someone Say If We Walk Away They'll Walk Away

All Those Experiences Were A Chance To Learn More About Music. Playing With The Valley Band Is Like Such A "live" Band. I Mean, Really, In Many Ways Bright Eyes Is Really A Studio Project. We Form Bands To Tour, But It Really Is - You Know, We Take The Songs And We Figure Out How To Decorate Them And It's All In The Studio, We Build The Songs That Way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band Was The Exact Opposite, Where Everybody Knows What They Are Gonna Be Playing On The Song And There's Sort Of A General Stylistic Approach, And Then It's Just Plug In And Play.