The time came around where the label was like, "Well, if you want something to come out in early 2017, it's going to have to be done by, like, so-and-so." So I plucked some of the old songs and wrote some new ones. Everybody keeps asking me, "Is this your L.A. record?" I was doing songs in a bedroom in New York, I was doing it in a bedroom in L.A. The only difference is when I look out the window, there's palm trees instead of snow.
I really love a lot of Japanese music, like Ryuichi Sakamoto and this guy I got really into, Tatsuro Yamashita. When I was a little younger, I thought synthesizers meant Kraftwerk, cold, robotic, weird, Autobahn. But these guys are having a lot of fun on these things. Sometimes. Sometimes it's very somber. They could go either way.
Going on tour, you don't have a lot of time to mull things over. You're just kind of, "Another beer, another show, another song."
Everybody's a multifaceted, emotional, living being, I think. Sometimes it's fun to goof around, sometimes you've got to think about things, sometimes you've got to be strange, and then you've got to be jiggly. That's just what being a human's all about.
I get asked that a lot: "What do you think your role is, with all the people that look up to you?" I'm an entertainer, you know? I'm not trying to bombard anybody with anything, but at the same time, face-to-face or in real life, if I'm talking to some kid, I have opinions just like everybody else does.
With the "old dog" stuff, maybe the term "old" is in there, but I'm 26. I'm not that old. It's mostly like, "Ah, you dirty old dog!" I'm saying it more like that. I'm still ripping. I'm ready to rip. I'll make a bunch more records and have a nice time. We'll see what happens.
I don't think anybody has a choice. Everybody has to kind of interact with all the craziness right now. I don't like to engage - a lot of people made a point of doing the social media thing, and I think that social media is complete trash, so I treat it like that. I like Instagram. I like the funny photos. Other than that, it's not for me.
I didn't want to play music because the whole family did it. I wanted to work in a cubicle. I saw Office Space as a young tween and missed the point of the movie. I was like, "This looks good!".
When you're growing up, you just take what you've got.
Regardless of how funny I want to be, I don't ever have a problem speaking from my heart or speaking honestly to people.
I've never done an album in the same place really - I like to be able to remember where I did every single one of them .
[My House By The Water] is a nice instrumental track. The sound of the water is from the same place where the front photo was taken. I live really close to the airport, so there's also planes going over. It's kind of to remind me of living in there, because I'm not gonna be living in there for very much longer.
I'm not very good at playing piano, so I usually hit chords with my right hand. And those chords came, and I was just singing a little bit.
[Juan Wauters] got the tips for Queens because he grew up there.So him and my roommate, Matt Volz, they hooked me up, New York Style.
I mean, Manhattan is cool. But weird parts, I like that. Jamaica, Queens, that's great.
I lived in Brooklyn for a year and I moved out to Rockaway Beach. I've been living here for two years now. I put my address on the album, so I have a lot of visitors all the time.
I recorded this album in a windowless room in Brooklyn by myself. I think Chamber of Reflection sums the album up better than Salad Days to tell you the truth.
[Chamber of Reflection off of Salad Days]I think it's probably that one. There's no guitar on that song, I've never recorded a song with absolutely no guitar, which is interesting. The idea behind it, well it's a Free Mason reference because before they become Free Mason's they had to go into this room called the Chamber of Reflection where they think about the life they brought with them, the life they've lived up until this point and all their wrong and right doings. And that's basically what I did with this album.
You kind of have to be like " What have you been working the last five years for? Why are you complaining?" It's essentially me talking myself out of being a crybaby indie rock butthead.
I'm getting paid to tour and travel and I don't have to work a shitty job. And it's weird because you like start getting pissed off about that.
'Salad Days' refers to a youthful or innocent period. And a lot of people having been asking me already so you jaded? And I'm not, I'm 23. It's me reflecting, I had to re-learn to have fun with music and I had to re-count my blessings.
[Making music] only turned into this weird job in the last year or so. Once I figured that out, I was having a blast.
Over a year before I started recording Salad Days, so I finally sat down and was like I have to do this. And it did feel like a chore. I was looking at it in a completely wrong way, trying to one up myself. Just the typical sophomore album bullshit. The main thing I got out of it is I eventually gave up on all that stuff. I had to re-learn why I liked making music in the first place, why I liked recording in my room all the time. Because it's fun. It's fun for me.
That's kind of the weird thing about Salad Days. I had to block time off from touring and tell my management and label like no press, no nothing. Let me make an album. You guys are running me dead.
I mean it was weird. But Phoenix watched us every night. But it's like they're not even a band, they're like a corporation. They bring a staff of like 40 people.
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