ON RELEASING

You never really know if anyone’s going to like it. I always learned this from my Pops: the minute you do anything and you show it to anybody or you let anybody listen to your art or you let anybody see your art or you ask anyone’s opinion on anything — it’s no longer yours. You have no ownership of your art.

I’m not reinventing the stone or anything by saying that, but I’ve always really kept that with me. And I know for us, we do what we can — we’re kind of perfectionists so we don’t want anyone to hear it or see it until it’s done. Once it’s out there, you have no idea what people are going to think about it.

ON HUMANISM

My Dad, he’s like a super-supportive guy. He’s the guy telling me to become a rock star, not the other way around. It’s not like, “Yo Dad, I want to be a goddamn rock star.” It’s him going, “Yo, my fucking son’s gonna be a rock star.” So that’s always really cool when you have a parent or a mentor that forms your passion into a dream for you.

Often times you have instructors or just people bringing you back to reality: “Hey, you make good grades but not good enough to get into med school.” Stuff like that. But sometimes it’s nice when you have a mentor that just goes, “Nah, fuck that. You literally can break the mold and go as big as you want.”

It’s that good duality of being reasonable but still remembering: you’re a human and any human can do whatever they want.

Human beings, our best gift is that we are fucking limitless. Boundless in our imagination and brain capacity. What we can do with our body and brain is incredible. And it’s important we all shoot for the moon.

I found recently through self-learning and self-awareness — the most beautiful people in this world are the people that encourage other people to do that. I found my Dad is that guy, and it took me a while to realize that as a teenager and young adult. I only hope to grow up and be as encouraging as he is; just to do the impossible. Because it’s really not that far off.

I think as you get older, you get beaten down. And instead of encouraging, you try to be realistic to people that don’t need to hear that. It takes a special kind of person to encourage someone to just do the impossible.

Sometimes that’s the trick; it’s hard to inspire oneself. That’s why some people go, “Being an artist is the hardest job in the world.” Because you have to be inspired. So it’s great there are people in this world that do the inspiring for people. Their greatest gift is taking you aside and saying, “I see this, and whether you’re fucking good or bad I don’t care. I see this in you and you need to get it out. And so if you’re afraid or you’re worried — doesn’t fucking matter. But do it.”

That kind of takes the waiting around for inspiration part to come hit you.

It’s all heart, not like, braun. It’s not like, “Yo, I’m fucking big. I can do this.” No, it’s like, “My heart fucking busts out of my chest to accomplish tasks.”

When I was a young kid, my favorite thing was: I love music. I love this album. I love this song. But I really wish I could be there and ask the guy how he did this. Like lightening strikes kind of shit. That’s what a great piece of art is: lightening striking. That was always my biggest interest. So that was my big thing: if I ever inspired a kid to write his own song.

ON INSPIRATION

I was inspired by bands to write my own shit. It’s like when you see a great painting, you’re like, “Man, I want to be able to do that, but differently. I want to make it my own.”

I have a younger brother, and I see the education system is just kind of bumbling along and a lot of that, “Here. This, this. There are the answers, these are the answers. These are the answers. Study, study, study. Write it down word-for-word, and choke it down.” And yeah, you can learn a lot of fucking facts. You can learn where electricity comes from. You can learn how a energy-saving hydraulic dam works. You can learn how cells are made. Some really important shit; I’m not saying that’s not important.

I’m just saying yeah — you can learn that. But it’s not fucking inspiring that guy who learns everything about it and has already been done — he doesn’t want to go and find the next smallest atom. The way that’s done is not inspiring.

There comes a point where you can’t just sit there and mimic or just continue learning. You got to put it into practice. And the sooner you get to that point, the better. Because that means there’s more for you to create now. You could spend a hundred years studying and only have but one year to implement.

Or you study for one year and you just take a hundred years to make fucking mistakes.

But I promise you: you’ll make a hundred times more mistakes, but you’ll also make way more fucking gold that way. It’s more honest. Pushing for honesty in something. Being genuine.

Lions tends not to say, “Let’s get in this room, and we have two months to write three songs and this is what they’re going to be about.” It’s all much more free-flowing than that, and that’s what works for me and my guys. If you’re trying to be genuine, you have to constantly evaluate the way you do things, the way you think about things. And I think all good artists do.

ON ARTISTRY

There’s no criteria on being an artist. My brother picks up Crayola crayons, and he can color in the lines of a coloring book or he can go outside the lines and color the background — like, that’s a fucking artist. I don’t care, I’m not holding anybody to a really high standard. I’m just saying: if you’re going to do that, you can’t help but grow if you’re constantly thinking about how to improve You.

You — not even your art.

Yeah, I want to play guitar and be a better guitar player but the only way I’m really going to become that is if I push my Self. It’s more primitive than just practicing scales — I think — to create.

I need to go forth and read more books. I need to see more movies. I need to have more conversations over coffee, and that’s going to help me get in that room, turn on my amp and just go somewhere else and really play and push myself. I wouldn’t be doing right by my Self if I wasn’t constantly trying to put myself in uncomfortable positions to force myself to get in that mind-space. Get in that place where I need to challenge myself to grow.

There’s probably some artists and some people everyday that just go through Life and don’t put themselves in these weird places and doing weird things because they would rather be more comfortable. And that’s ok. I’m not you — I can’t tell you what to do or how to do it.

I think it’s important to be in that uncomfortable place as often as you can. You need to realize that you can tolerate it and it’s not going to compromise who you are. There’s so many instances where people are afraid to do anything different because they’re afraid they’re going to lose a bit of themselves. I think that’s where the fear comes in.

How can you be afraid of something because it’s different? You’re afraid of the implications of something being different.

I think it’s healthy if you just go into it and understand: I can go here and I can do this. Or I can go be with these people and I can listen to this kind of music or I can go have this kind of discussion — and it’s not going to change me. But if I go into it willing to grow from it and compromise and see the perspective of it — I’m limitless to what I can learn from that implement in my life.

And if there’s nothing I take from it, then that’s ok, too. You’ve only refined what doesn’t work for you. That information is just as fucking important as what is good for you.

ON GROWTH

I think I grow every time I finish a song with my band. I think I grow every time I sit by myself, spend a weekend just kind of writing my own songs that I never show anybody. I think I grow when I jam with people I’m never going to start a band with. I think I grow every time I finish a book and I find myself driving and just thinking about shit in my head. But it’s all about having to be willing to go outside my comfort zone to find that growth — find that place that helps me grow.

And there are a good bit of people who go, “Yeah, I’ve grown” and then you kind of say back, like “Nah, dude. You just like, sit all the time.” Or like, you’re on that same grind every day. You go to work, you go and eat at the same place. You hang out with the same guys, you go to the same bar. How can you be growing if I can see that you have this pattern? It’s a good thing the more people that are willing to have that dialogue.

How many times are you with your boys, and you’re sitting there and instead of talking about girls, you’re like, “Yo, dude. What’s your potential? Are you utilizing your potential?” We’re not in that society where people are that open to challenge the people they love the most with those hard questions.

My closest friends — we’ve always done that with each other. It also leads to me not having a whole lot of close friends, because some people find they don’t want to be challenged every time they go out and want to relax.

They feel they go into the world, and they feel they get enough of that from their boss, or their parents or from their boyfriend or girlfriend. But it’s like, “Nah, that’s healthy.”

That’s the point — it’s not bad.

You think my judgements or me just urging you to push yourself is going to affect who you are — no. It’s not. Because you are who you are. It’s just that willingness of opening up your perspective and adapting to what helps you, and pushing away what hurts you. Or what doesn’t help you. Those are good people to have in your life: the people who want to push you and see you grow. And they reiterate it always, like “You’re afraid of heights — let’s go cliff-jumping.” And you’re like, “Fuck.” And ultimately you go, and that’s how you learn — that’s how you grow.

If I went to a guitar competition, the way I’d prepare is by practicing guitar. But that’s not the art of it. The art of it is me and my guitar. It’s me writing a song; it’s me taking a riff that has been played a million times and making it fresh every time. It’s like a mix of muscle-memory, dexterity, passion, creativity, love — all these things come together to make it happen.

But what helps me the most — when I want to write a new song, the best thing I can do is read a new book. Read a book I haven’t read in a long time. Read a book of mine from a favorite author. Read a book from an author I’ve never heard of before.

Sometimes I get in a big rut when I’m like, “Man, I’m not doing anything new.” Like, yeah I’m playing things I’ve never played before; I’m playing faster than I’ve ever played before because I always play guitar. It’s a stress-reliever, as well. But when it comes to being an artist, my most adept moments are when after I’ve read a book. Or after I’ve went and had coffee with someone which we’ve talked about books.

I just love literature, and I get a lot from other people’s words and having to imagine something.

That’s what helps me be an artist with my instrument of guitar, and vocals and stuff like that. It’s just pushing yourself. I might read a book by an author recommended to me but I might not fucking fall in love with it.

It might not become my favorite author. It doesn’t mean it won’t push me next time I go pick up my guitar.

You know, turn on my amp — that something’s not going to come out of me from that immersion in something else.

We’re all creatures of habit; sometimes it’s hard to do something else but if you try to put yourself in the situation where your support-system are people that do other things and will push you to try those things and vice-versa. I used to always tell my friends, they’d be like, “Man, it’s so cool you play guitar. It’s so cool you’re in a band.” And I’m like, “Well, fucking pick up an instrument, dude. You want to start a band? Like, if that’s really cool to you then let’s do it. I don’t care how good or bad you are. It’s just doing it. And if you play a couple times or we jam a little bit and you’re just not feeling it, for whatever reason just doesn’t come together for you — no harm done. Like, I enjoy spending time with you, that’s why I’m offering this to you.”

Sometimes humans aren’t smart enough to go, “I’m in a fucking rut — I need that. I need to be uncomfortable.” That’s almost counterintuitive, but that’s what will help the most. You need those people closest to you. And it’s hard, because it takes people who are passionate about anything to really constantly want to be put in that place of change.

ON LEARNING

It’s an exercise for every human being to just want to know how someone else does something. Because there’s an art to it, an art of mastery that humans normally don’t understand that nuisance. Most people are like: “I want to learn something because I want to be good at it.” But that’s fucked up you know?

You learn something so you can have learned something. Just because you’ve learned something doesn’t mean you’re ever going to be good at it.

I could try to cook lasagna every day; that doesn’t mean by the end of the week, or the end of my life I’m going to cook the best fucking plate-pan of lasagna in my life. That’s not what that means. That’s what humans have kind of adapted that to. Sometimes you have to do things because it’s beautiful.

There’s something about art, because there is some beautiful artistry to it. Some mastery of just human interaction in all art. When you see a painting, you can almost visualize a beautiful woman or a beautiful man just sitting there and putting paintbrush to paper and all the intricate moves they have to do. The breaks they have to take just to look at the subject and then back to the canvas. There’s just something weird about it, something strange that is communal.

I like to do that, and it takes people pushing you to want to learn things just for the sake of learning things. Or just seeing someone doing it.

ON TALENT

Ok, example: this dope band from Boston called People Like You, they’re all like, Berklee students. We played last Saturday — they stayed at my house afterwords. And in the morning, everyone was lazily taking showers, walking around. Just getting ready for the day — they had to go drive three hours so they’re trying to just wake up. I understand that.

There’s a trumpet player in the band and he woke up, pulled out his trumpet, put his mute in and he just went in my room where no one was around and he was just doing exercises and stuff. And you could tell he liked that. So I asked him, “Do you have to do that every day?” And he was like, “Yeah, I have to do it for about two-three hours a day just for warm-ups” just so he can keep that strength in his body and strength in his lips. I was like, “Fuck yeah.” And I could still tell he was enjoying it.

He looked at me and he said, “Yeah, dude. There’s something about waking up and just blowing a lick out of my trumpet; just kind of getting it out there — putting it out there in the world that I can do this — that is really calming.” So I looked at him and I said, “Hey man, let’s go to my room where I practice and I want you to take out the mute and I just want you to fucking play something for me.” I’ve never played a horn instrument, I’ve never been in Band or anything. I’ve never played a classical instrument. I don’t even play the blues or even older styles of music; I play something super contemporary.

And he was like, “Do you really want me to?” And he kind of laughed; he thinks I’m being kind of strange. Which I assume it did sound strange. And I just stared at him and said, “Go for it, dude.” So for about a minute or two, he was just playing something, whether he had made it up or whether it was a piece of music he’d learned a long time ago. And it wasn’t like, the best performance in the world; he probably hit some notes that weren’t one hundred percent on pitch. But he did it.

And I was like, “Thanks, man; that was awesome.” And he was like, “Thanks. I really enjoyed not having to play with a mute. I’m glad I didn’t have to be conscientious, because that was a lot of good.” Really therapeutic for him. That was a cool interaction of literally getting to see that dude do something he’s really good at. It made me really happy.

I’m pretty sure they’re all Berklee graduates or that’s how they all met so they’re all like, fucking masters. And it was cool they like Lions, because none of us are trained like that. But that’s what I’m saying: art’s so fucking cool, music’s so cool because if it’s genuine, it doesn’t matter your background.

It doesn’t matter the A-to-B. It’s the, “This does something for me. I respect this. I can feel this, I can enjoy this.” And vice-versa. They were awesome.

ON LITERATURE

Hands-down, my favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut. He’s pretty autobiographical himself; he always writes about himself or his family. Or he makes up characters out of his family. But he writes pretty out-there, science-fiction-y type black humor-type stuff just making fun of the world at large for all the weird things we as humans do.

I like a lot stuff. When I think of my grandparents, I think of them being just really sweet people. They’re from a simpler time and so I feel he’s a guy who writes about that time period. He’s an older guy, his family was really prominent during the early 1900’s and World War I era, World War II era.

Yet people of that time are still having all these complex emotions. Not being as simple as we might think our grandparents were. They thought about sex, they thought about drugs. They thought about love, and life.

They had as many fucking desires and passions as we do. Just the time dictated: you grow up, you’re eighteen, you find a wife, get married. Are married for fifty years, have four kids and work a blue-collar job your whole life.

That’s what we think. So it’s cool to know that it doesn’t matter what time you’re from: we’re all humans. It’s just nice to know our most fucked-up thoughts and even our most good-intentioned thoughts happen as part of the Human experience, regardless. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or who you are or from what time period.

If you’re a human, you deal with great loss of a loved one through death or through the end of a relationship or through growing up. Or through whatever. You know — true tragedy.

And then you have great love. Your favorite thing, your favorite food. Your favorite girlfriend, your favorite lover. Your favorite prostitute, like Ancient Greeks. It doesn’t matter. You have all these super end-of-both-spectrum good and bad things that you feel. That’s art. You’re trying to feel, you’re trying to connect, you’re trying to stretch out — hoping to connect with somebody else, some other soul.

It’s comforting to know they’re feeling any and all of the same things as you, whether you can communicate that or not.

Language isn’t human. Language changes depending on your geography, or your time period. But emotions — whether you can communicate it or not, you are feeling the same thing and it’s cool to see that through literature. And it’s at a time where — I don’t want to read about what kids in the ‘90’s were feeling; that’s too close to when we grew up. But reading about how people felt in the ‘40’s and the ‘50’s and ‘60’s — it’s really cool.

So on purpose, when I write lyrics or I’m trying to write a theme or a story — you do feel bad, you feel happy, you feel sad but it’s that stretching. Sometimes you can’t communicate because you’re too fucking mad. Sometimes you’re so self-absorbed in yourself but you’re still reaching for something or some other thing, and you just need to get there.

Whatever it takes to fucking get to that other side, because that other person is feeling the same thing and having the same problem and they can’t communicate it just like you can’t. But we’re both there, trying to make it happen.

That’s a theme I kind of arch on a lot. And that’s just me, like we’re all kind of the same, we’re all similar. We have the same super-evil thoughts, super dubious shit, and also the purest things: compassion, love. Everybody has all that stuff, and we have to express it — or try to express it and just make us work as a whole. And rarely does it ever come together. But when it does, it’s fucking great. When it doesn’t, it’s like the reason we tick is that tension.

ON ENCOURAGEMENT

We’re all just variables of a few things, and that’s part of the fun — is figuring it out. Going through life, and seeing what works and what doesn’t and having those experiences. I had a girlfriend one time who was always like, “You’re really unique.” Which I don’t think I’m unique, because I told her, “It’s really easy for people to say, ‘I’m unique.’ It’s really easy for people to go, ‘I do things differently.’ ”

But have some credit for humanity that — you’re not that special. The only thing you can do is try. And that’s what makes you extra-special is just fucking doing it.

But as far as you, like, just You — you aren’t that special. Because there’s a lot of people who do cooler shit than you’ll ever do, so just try. Don’t just sit there in contentment and be like, “I’m special, I don’t need to do shit.”

That’s the wrong attitude. The minute you think you’re special is the minute you can punch your time-clock and just sit down and be like, “I won.” I think that’s a fucking cop-out.

She was really into herself, and that’s what she said: “We’re special.” And I was like, “Eh.” I don’t think that seems fair; I think that’s a cop-out. I’m not special; I’m just trying to do my thing and I hope other people can tell that I’m trying to do my thing. And I’m going to try to respect other people for doing their thing.

ON INDULGENCE

You’ve ever been sitting with a guy and the guy’s really mad about something. And he goes, “Man, that really pisses me off. I know that if I did it, I would do it the right way.” And you kind of sit there and you’re like, “But you’re not doing it. So why are we even fucking talking about it if you did it?” That guy that’s always like, “Aw man, that fucking sucks. If that were me in that situation, I would’ve knocked it out of the fucking park.”

You’re sitting there like, “That’s not what we’re talking about. That’s not the point of this conversation is to hear that you think you’re the fucking man. We’re talking about me, or we’re talking about so-and-so who’s not even here to defend themselves. We’re just talking about what happens in life; all the different circumstances and surrounding environments and all that shit.”

So why do you have to come in and speak about, “… Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I’m dope.” I’ve always really put pressure on those people, like, “That’s not what we’re doing, man. That’s like, not the game we’re playing.” If you have some critical insight or some perspective instead of saying, “Oh, well if that was me, I would’ve knocked it out of the park.” You should really put yourself in their shoes and be empathetic and say, “Well, that sucks. I can see how they came to that conclusion. I can understand every point …”.

You really want to immerse yourself — that’s how you’re going to learn it. Imagine not that you’re the guy who does the opposite and you succeed where they didn’t — you put yourself in the shoes of why you didn’t succeed.