I like the fact that it's a big city, but that you can hop in a car and drive an hour in one direction and be in the mountains... or drive in another direction and be at the ocean. It's a city with a good 'escape plan'. heh

Thanks, glad you like it! A lot of the inspiration for the album came out of things that are happening in our country right now. In a way, it is a very political album, but I tried to write in such a way that it wouldn't be tied to this particular time period too much. That's the danger of writing political songs... if they are too specific, they lack relevance just a few years later. Musically, I looked back on a lot of the bands that got me into music in the first place and was listening to them, trying to regain that feeling of hearing them for the first time.

I'm probably most happy with how 'Damaged' and 'Madman's Dream' came out, but suffice it to say, if a song made it on the album, I must've been happy with it.

I can't say as I have one... different songs go over differently depending on what city you are playing in. I guess I would say my favorite is whichever song the audience is really reacting to on a particular night. That's what is most gratifying as a performer, at least!

Stuff I've really been enjoying recently includes the Editors, Hybrid, Gabriel & Dresden, Digitalism, Burial, Distance, Shiny Toy Guns, Outputmessage, and a bunch of other stuff...

Without a doubt, it was playing for over 20,000 people at the M'era Luna festival. It was by far the biggest crowd I had ever performed for, and I was frankly scared shitless at first, but the crowd was great and it was just a wonderful experience all around.

Sleep.

The best thing is obviously meeting the fans and getting to perform for people. The worst part is the lack of sleep and privacy... eating a lot of bad food... and sitting around bored for hours waiting for things to happen.

When we were in Barcelona recently, we were driving back to our hotel, which required us to drive past the soccer stadium. When there aren't games at this stadium, it is where all the prostitutes gather. Many of these are women, but a great deal of them are transvestites.... some of which really DO look like women. So as we were driving past, we made a game out of trying to call out which were actual women, and which were transvestites. Until we drove past one particular transvestite standing there with no pants on at all, swinging his giant dick around like a plane propeller. I WISH I didn't have that image burned into my mind, but unfortunately, it has proven to be very memorable to all who witnessed it. haha

I can burp the alphabet. (Drives the ladies WILD).

My favorite thing to do to relax is to cook.

There have been so many, but the one that still stands out in my mind the most was at a show we did in Albuquerque once. In the front row of the show, was this huge, scary-looking guy who was in a full black metal get-up. His face was painted up, he had big spikey gauntlets on his arms, contacts in his eyes, and was just generally a big guy who likely would not choose to pick a fight with. I'm not an easily intimidated person, but this was the type of guy I most definitely would not fuck with. As the final song of our set, we did 'Disappoint' and this guy just started BAWLING. It was a really cool moment, because it was just so unexpected. After the show he came and gave me a big hug and thanked me for the song.

Honestly, we've been pretty lucky in this respect. Usually the worst we have to deal with is the person who is annoyingly drunk, or who tries to get a bit too familiar. I have found, though, that since starting a MySpace for the band, the amount of 'insane/seriously disturbed/and borderline retarded' emails I get from people has gone WAY up. That place is like a magnet for crazy.

Thanks for the interview, and I hope we'll see a lot of you all out on the road!