Ultimately, what interests me is using exotic sounds in my songs.

Over a year's time, I felt like I squeezed in five years of touring experience, which was a really huge help moving forward.

The beautiful thing about working with new instruments is that you sort of approach it with a fresh perspective.

The way that I sing is very mumbled-together, and so I guess I'm kind of stuck with it now.

I do have the personnel that we use in the back of my head when I'm working, but I also don't want to limit myself.

I like an even-keeled, slow-paced job.

For the most part, the real work is done in the songwriting stage and recording; the next step is presenting to people.

My parents live out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of this peach orchard. It's actually Peach County, one of the largest peach-growing counties in Georgia. It's very rural, and there is nothing much going on, so I guess that's had a big influence on everything as far as just not having much to do.

When you work this intensely on something, the recording process becomes a bit like cabin fever. I shut everything out and, for a while, I totally lost perspective. To an outsider, I imagine the whole recording process sounds like torture.

I felt like I was building this world brick by brick with each layer of instrumentation I was doing. I could see it growing in some ways. I feel like most writers feel the same way. You're almost living inside of this magic world that you're building.