On the Winter Olympics:

I’m out on the West Coast for a couple of weeks during the Olympics this year, a lot of friends are here and playing. It’s kind of confidential, but I am playing, and it’s gonna be a good vibe for sure.

On touring vs. recording:

This record was such an in-depth spiritual process. By the time I finished with my engineers — I mean you’re never really finished — you get very reflective. Touring is like some army shit, you’re out there with a bunch of guys, on your own in the world instead of being in the studio where you’ve created this illusion. Touring is the real deal: out in the world, meeting fans. I can’t really compare the two because they’re totally different processes. But if you make a record you’re proud of, touring is awesome because you’re playing what you’ve recorded, and sometimes people know the words and they call out a song from the audience. Those are all amazing things. You can start a song from your bedroom, then all of a sudden you’re in Portugal and people know what you’re doing.

On how songs evolve in live performances:

It happens on two fronts. I kick around this joke with my band, when we’re watching this other band that we’re friends with. When they play one particular song that’s well known, sometimes it’s just really fast and not like how it sounded originally. And sometimes the audience doesn’t realize because everyone thinks they know that song already. The band automatically plays it.

Other songs, maybe you don’t play them live as much, but one night on tour you find a piece of it and realize that maybe it doesn’t go over as well with the audience so you change it, just one or two lines. Things are constantly evolving and changing. It’s the difference between perfecting the sound with knobs in a studio and then going out in a room with 500 or 1,000 people. That’s the great thing about the band I’ve been playing with for a long time, we’re good about flipping things up. That’s when it really becomes fun, like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure kind of thing.

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