The group-effort sound in recording of 'Sea Lion' is like, you really hear all the people in the room and hear them interlocking. There's a real freight-train energy of all these people at the same time playing.

I've not really spent much time in proper studios. The room itself where you're recording, and how you live while you're there is what appeals to me.

The idea of having one ensemble do everything is what was on 'Sea Lion' and that's what I tried to make happen for 'Metals,' which is having five people in the room and all of us contributing equally to every arrangement and every song.

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.

The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.

Opinions are like snowflakes, you know what I'm saying?