With a lot of fear and trepidation. It’s totally improvisational because I work with collage, and cut up found warehouse paintings. I’ll sometimes stick a fragment or two on, and just try to figure out where to go from there. I’ve begun to think that I make each piece so differently from the other, and I don’t think that’s the way the art world likes things at this point. I think they like increments of change. While you would know it’s my work, I think I just always liked the challenge of how I’m going to compose. I get myself into a lot of trouble and hot water, and I just have to work on it, and work on it. I think that’s why some of my paintings are so awkward and odd, because I’ve had to deal with mistakes that I’ve made, and tried to correct them in some way.

First I like to do the guitar part, just because I feel like the guitar parts in most of my songs provide the foundation of the song. Then I’d go back and record the drums, and then figure out what other instruments were needed to fill out the song. It’s pretty exhausting being the only person in the studio, especially when it came to the arrangements. It made me miss being in a band with other people, because at least then you could be like, “What do you think? What should go here? Does this sound OK?” Whereas if you’re just by yourself, you’re like, “What do I think?” That was definitely hard because we had to do things quickly and it was easy to lose perspective and get lost in it.

When I start a project, it’s a kind of investigation and curiosity at the beginning. I’m basically culling materials. I’m gathering. A lot of the work takes on a collage aesthetic. So I am thinking through an idea and then gathering all of the supporting documents. In some ways it’s essayistic. I’m attempting to put forth an idea or a thesis. There are assertions that are being made, and what can I use visually, whether it is 16 millimeter film from the past or things that I shoot myself, whether it’s interview that I go out and get, whether it’s me painting on film and creating some sort of abstraction that alludes to or gestures towards the assertion. It’s playtime at the beginning. It’s almost like a very active brainstorming that requires me to go out and find materials as well as make notes, as well as look at footage as well as read. It’s investigative curiosity at the beginning, this phase of questioning and garnering. And at the end it’s instinctual. It’s a sweet spot. There have been times where I’ve gone out and presented something thinking that it’s done and then brought it back. I’ve gotten audience reactions, brought it back, turned it up a little bit, and then it was done. Sometimes my finishing process requires me to see it with a large group of people.

That’s tough. At this point, with both visual art and music, I’ve done it enough where it’s very much this flow state where I’m not really thinking about any technical stuff. I’m just putting one thing down, and that leads to the next thing, and then you’re off to the races. There’s very little rationalization or any real plan, especially at the very beginning of the project. It’s literally just trying things to see where I can end up. As an album project starts shaping up, there’s a handful of songs or maybe…there’s some parameters in place, and you’re working within that.