I Want So Badly To Believe That

There Were A Lot Of Fences And Walls Existing In My Life, Literally And Figuratively, And That Was Really Not Indicative Of The Kind Of Person That I'd Always Been. So, When I Moved Back To Seattle, The First Thing I Said Was, "i Will Never Live In Fear Again."

The Late '90s Were A Really Bad Time For People Trying To Be Rock Stars, You Know What I Mean? It Seemed Like Everyone Was A One-hit Wonder On The Radio. We Had Friends Who Had A Hit Single On The Radio And Sold 500,000 Records, And Then They Couldn't Get Arrested A Year Later. I Had This Feeling At The Time That That Was Not Possible Anymore, So The Idea Of Becoming The Biggest Band In The Country—it Seemed Laughable. I Felt That Having Those Sort Of Ambitions Was Foolish, Because There Was No Way That Was Going To Be Possible. If You Saw It That Way, You Were Just Deluding Yourself.

I Don't Spend My Time Perusing Message Boards To Find Out What People Think About Me Or If People Think My Songs Are Good Or If People Love That Lyric Or This Or That. I Just Want To Be Happy With It Myself - And If Other People Like It, That's Great.

You Look Back At A Time You Idealize Now And You Only Remember The Good Stuff. You Tell The Stories About The Hard Stuff And Just Laugh About It Now. You Don't Remember How Difficult It Was To Be Stranded In Austin After Driving 52 Hours From Seattle In A Rainstorm And Having Nowhere To Stay For Five Hours. You Remember That Stuff And Laugh About It Now. You Don't Feel It The Way You Did Back Then When You Were So Scared And Nervous And Tired And Hungry. We Always Idealize The Past Because We Don't Feel The Painful Stuff The Way We Used To.

I Feel Like There's A Lot Of Beauty In The Darkness Of 'narrow Stairs,' But That's Not Really A Place I'm Ready To Go To For A While. I'm Interested In Taking A Different Approach And Having The Next Record Be Different In Tone - I'm Just Not Interested In Making Another Dark, Dark Album.