People generally think that all Minnesotans are just kind of naively nice. I don't think that's the case.

In L.A., you just kind of come and have a nice hiking-yoga-gym life.

I thought I was uncontroversial, and I thought I would just slide through. I naively told people that I was a non-controversial nominee.

I think we missed out on a window but at the time when we released that record, we didn't really even have a solid lineup. Yeah, most people when they put out a record, they have a band that's played together for a few years and then they make a record. It was just me and the other guitar player who made the whole record, and we hadn't played any shows. I met the bass player at the photo shoot. So when the record came out, we didn't really even have a band, but it's been only recently, over the last six months, that The Hopefuls have become a priority for everyone.

I haven't seen the article but people have told me about it and it's nice to hear.

Most of the time people are very courteous and very nice and generally they just want to say hello and get an autograph.