I ended up doing these other diverse things, but King Tuff is the thing I always wanted to come back to - just good, straightforward rock n' roll. That music is the most me, you know?
Both labels are super awesome, with super awesome people who want to get stuff done. The biggest difference is that Sub Pop is already established, but working with Burger seems like we're part of something. They're growing, and I'm growing with them. They're my friends, and we're doing it together.
Every record has been very different, so I can't really compare them. The first record was good. I originally recorded about half the songs on that one in 2003 or something, and then I went back a few years later and re-recorded them and added some other songs.
I always tell people there's some kind of wall that you have to break through to see the beauty of L.A. The first few times I came here, I was like, 'I don't know about this place.' Then one day, it just totally flipped for me. It was crazy.
I don't like science because I don't think it makes sense to put a definition on everything. It's a lot more exciting to think of things as mysterious.
I had just made this album called 'Mind Blow,' a CD-R release on Spirit of Orr. This was in 2003. Quite a few of the songs from 'Was Dead' were actually on that.
I like recording by myself wherever I can, just because then I feel like I have ultimate freedom, and I can just control whatever I want to put down. There's something about going into your own little world.
I love the sound of '70s glam records. I love that snare sound. The recordings I like, it's all based on if the snare sounds good. The drums have to sound great.
I loved living with my parents - that's probably why I did it for so long. But it was almost too easy to live there. I had to force myself to get out, had to challenge myself. I had to start a new chapter.
I never took any guitar lessons or anything; I never really learned to play covers. I'm actually happy that I never took lessons as a kid. Now, I'd like to take lessons to kind of go deeper. But I think sometimes lessons can steal a person's personality away, because they're trying to do things so technically.
I think the first person who kind of broke my mind was probably Jimi Hendrix. Listening to him opened my mind up to where you can take music and how far you can take rock n' roll.
I'm in East L.A., like Mount Washington, Highland Park. There's a little strip that they're gentrifying, trying to make a hip spot, but you go there, and it's just kind of barren. Nobody hangs out anywhere in L.A. There's no loitering in L.A., so I don't know what to do with myself.
My dad took me and my brother to see Corrosion of Conformity. All I remember was that there was a dude swinging a chain in the mosh pit, and the bouncers were dragging him out.
My friends ask me what it's like moving from Vermont to L.A., but no matter where I am, I pretty much just end up sitting in coffee shops, thinking about songs.
