I’m not sure. I haven’t actually felt very stuck creatively or sonically. And when I think about it in hindsight, it’s just been on the forefront of my mind and what I think about. That has meant that I haven’t really thought about a lot of the other things that I do. But I think knowing that I have this thing that I can come back to that is interesting for me in my time here on Earth is healing for me, and makes me able to go out and do a lot of other things. It’s a bit of a lifeboat. So it helps having creation in music, but I don’t know if it’s implemented in the other practices. It’s like I have a sweet little invisible cat on my lap that I can stroke in the real world.

If I start to feel stagnant, going to see a good show always helps. Watching a great band makes me want to play music. Like, when we opened for Queens of the Stone Age a few years back. I was unsure where I wanted to go next musically, and had a feeling, like maybe I should do another acoustic album… I was starting to put some invisible pressure on myself instead of letting my instincts lead. But after a couple nights of watching Queens play these rock ‘n’ roll songs that have been my favorites for years, it was like, “No, fuck that, I want to play heavy music and let some aggression out,” so then I started working on Abyss .

I imagine people with writer’s block feeling unable to think of something to write about. I haven’t had that problem, but I’ve had something where I have too many things I want to write about and I feel unable to focus on one for sustained periods, and it feels like writer’s block in that I feel stuck. I keep becoming interested in one of the other things and my motivation keeps changing or disappearing and it usually takes something major from outside, like a book contract, for me to finally focus on one thing.

I had really bad writer’s block when I wrote Strangers. I didn’t really write about the stuff that I wanted to write about because I hadn’t admitted it to myself. And I think sometimes writer’s block is about stuff like that. You’re not being honest with yourself. I finally broke through it, but I did so by writing an incredibly apocalyptic record that was very symbolic. I told Randall I wrote a record about the end of the world, and he said, “I don’t think this record is about the end of the world. I think this record is about the end of your world.” And I was just like, “Fuck you.” But at the same time he was really right. It definitely was an anxiety record.