When I’m exhausted with it, you know, when my obsession with the thing becomes diluted and I want to do something else. [Or] having created a sufficient mess… where I can’t add anymore, I need to peel back. And then, of course I am lucky enough to have an editor, to turn a project loose and then we’ll go from there. It’s different for every project. No book that I have written has taught me how to write the next one. I feel like a baby every time I start a new book. Like I’ve never done this before, and I have to figure it out from scratch each time.

I mean, nothing’s ever done. I don’t think anyone knows when something is really done. There’s just doing it and not doing it. You do it until you don’t want to do it anymore. Then hopefully, someone else will take it over and keep on doing it. Songs are not really from any individual. There are all these lawsuits about plagiarism, Led Zeppelin has been going through that lately. It bums me out. The idea of intellectual property is kind of a trap. It’s just a way to get by, which I guess is fair because most of us are broke.

My mind is nearly like an infinite tunnel of potential ideas, but the ideas are all a part of what is already there. In my imagination, I always think there are more parts to record. Then when I work it through, I make it to a certain point and I’m like, “Actually, that’s enough.” Some of the extra bits that I’m thinking of are suggested anyway by interaction with what is already there, and it gets to a point where to add anything more would just be too much. I often imagine recording parts that people actually do hear, but are not actually there. By the time I’m done with the main guitar and other elements, [more parts] don’t capture anything else with all those suggested things. If I try to realize them, it’s less effective. I think that’s why people have often said they hear different things depending on how they listen to [our music].

It really comes down to instincts. If I feel good about it and the people that I trust that are listening to it feel good about it, then it’s good to go. But it’s definitely just a feeling you get in your gut that it’s done, and it’s time to either release it or can it and move on.