I think it helped my creativity to be in a town that didn't have that influence. It helped the productivity to be in a place where there wasn't much structure. You had to make it happen for yourself.

Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity.

I think the most important education you can get for writing, music, and creativity is live. You can learn the book, but at some point you have to put the book on the shelf and realize that imagination comes before logic.

[This summer, they're taking that party out on the road for their first big tour with the Backstreet Boys, where they're being introduced to pyrotechnics (in the Backstreet show), and what they're most excited about their first tour bus.] We just came from a minivan. It's pretty amazing to suddenly be sleeping and back here writing songs and up there watching TV, ... It's awesome.

There's loud guitars, there's harmony, but even more importantly, this is a really positive album. I don't think we're afraid to put a really happy album out there. It's a party in a package.

Kiss changed my life, ... Paul Stanley came to our show last summer; then we went to their show. Somehow I ended up going to L.A., to Paul Stanley's house, to write 'Angel to You, Devil to Me,' which is a track on our album.