You're an enormous sponge and everything goes in there and you squeeze it out in songs, I guess. And if you're a painter, you squeeze them out on to a canvas.

'Let It Die' is more piano-based, organ-based and percussion-based. Live, the songs are more guitar-based. The record that we're doing right now is really guitar-based. I feel like finally I get to write some parts that I'll be excited to play on tour for this record.

We were a duo on tour, but it was his music and his songs. I was kind of his Vanna White/singing partner/torch-song singer. I was the straight man to his funny man.

Something that I think I figured out slowly was if you're playing a show and there's a chatter or there is, you know, a lot of noise - people talking or something - I was never the one whose instinct was to try to be louder than them.

I believe everything creative is somewhat collaborative. If you're a painter and someone stretches your canvas, it was collaborative on some level.

I'm interested in doing everything and anything that I can to squeeze that creativity out of my brain. I guess I'm sort of a performance rat.