I find sadness and strife to be so much more interesting with an upbeat melody.
Textures apply to everything I do. Even within my music, I like smooth things, and then hard and fluffy things, all giving them their place to shine.
Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.
I've always been obsessed with contrast in records, and using harsher elements to make the quieter ones more powerful.
If you put all the songs together that I've written on band records, and put it up next to my solo record, there's definitely a different kind of feel than Billy's songs.
I don't like when a song goes from one mood to another unless it's going to be out of sight.
I'm not interested in making an album that's just dark and pummelling for an hour, nor am I interested in making a beatless record from start to finish.
If you say, 'I listen to pop,' you picture this kind of perfect, colorful, polished song. I want to have that, but when you open it, you see this gritty dark - kind of like dancing your tears away. Disguise the sadness in a pop beat.
My first two records were more energetic; Phantom Moon is subtle, quiet; so these various reactions are just something I expected.
Sometimes I sound like gravel, and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.
That's what I love - on 'The Farewell,' we played with a lot of silence and a lot of negative space, and I really worked with the composer to create those juxtapositions of like, those awkward silences and when something comes in.
Stylistically speaking, 'Paradise' is a Jekyll & Hyde song.
I like to hear melodies that go from one extreme to the next- saxophone to a bell to a whistle, for instance.
I like it when two sounds complement each other but are way different on a record.
