I don’t put myself into that situation. I play and discover. You have to imagine a kid in a sandbox. You’re just having fun. You’re not expecting anything; you’re not looking for anything. You’re not following a trend; you don’t do something that needs to be similar to something else. It is actually from within yourself, which is endless. It’s like a kaleidoscope—you shake it and you have a bunch of new ways of doing things. So I think this block only happens to people who expect something, or who want something or are chasing something or who are trying to write something that sells or whatever. If you don’t look at all of these aspects, if you’re just having fun with notes, it doesn’t happen.

There were a few times I got stuck and I would do automatic writing where you just decide, okay, for five minutes or eight minutes or 10 minutes, you just write and you don’t stop for a second, and you end up with pages and pages of stuff that way. And there’s stuff you can glean from it. There’s vague ideas or just a couple of sentences that’ll make you think of something. So that would be an easy-ish way to worm myself out of hitting a wall.

The impulse to make something is generally related to something that you need to say. When it feels like a rock in your shoe or something, and you have to get it out. It’s very clear. Sometimes you get it out, and it’s not very useful. Often, I’ll finish working on something and it’s not in a state that I need to give it so somebody. The getting it out was necessary for me.

I like to hammer on and get it done. That doesn’t mean you should rush it or be impatient. I’m very fortunate, because doing what I do, there is a matter of deadlines that come into place if I’m making a record. There is the pressure of having members of my band that I employ who have mortgages, and then management and record company who rely on me to deliver. But I’m glad to have that pressure. Again, it’s a privilege. It means I’m doing well, but it means I have to deliver. It gives you an endpoint.