You can bleed some things dry, you know? It used to be that before I had ever been out on stage there was the excitement of what it would be like to play on stage. ‘If I could just play on stage,’ or ‘If I could just record.’ You know, that would be another thing, ‘If I could just record a record, what would that be like?’ I don’t have those inspirations like that anymore. Ten years later, just working in the same box, you think, God, one part of my brain says I’m tired of trying to come up with things in this box, but I force myself to do it because I know something good can come out of it, if I really work inside of it. Inspiration and work ethic, they ride right next to each other.

When I was an upholsterer, you know, sometimes you’re not inspired to reupholster an old chair. Sometimes it’s just work. You just do it because you’re supposed to, and maybe at the end and you finish and look at it and you say, ‘That looks good. That’s pretty good.’ And that’s it, and you just move on. That’s it. I mean, not every day of your life, you’re going to wake up, and the clouds are going to part and rays from heaven are going to come down and you’re going to write a song from it. I mean, sometimes you just get in there and force yourself to work. Maybe something good will come out.

That was one of the things, was like, ‘Whether we like it or not, we’ll write some songs and record them.’ Force yourself into it. Book only four or five days in the studio, and force yourself to record an album in that time. You know, deadlines and things make you creative, but opportunity and telling yourself, ‘Oh, you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world. You got all the colors in the palette you want, anything you want.’ I mean, that just kills creativity.