"The idea behind this album is that all of the songs are tunes that I wrote on tour, in that town, about that town. Some I wrote in the van or on the train on the way to the show, but most of them I scribbled down while another band was sound checking, usually about an hour before I went on stage. I would tape the lyrics to the top of my guitar and sing the song that night.
There's three reasons why I chose to write the album this way. First, I love music, and don't get to play enough of it on tour. You would think, "Oh I'm going on tour, I'm going to get to play loads of music," but the reality is that you may only have an instrument in your hands for about 20 min a day. I get to play so much more when I'm at home than when I'm on tour. Writing songs on the road like this was a way to force myself to have the guitar in my hands for longer each day.
Second, there's so many distractions and ways of being non productive when you're on tour. Writing songs each day helped me to stay plugged in, and in the NOW. Backstage is a funny place these days. Every roadie, tour manager, and band member is constantly plugged into their phone, computer, or video game. There's so many easy ways to distract yourself from the moment and put your brain somewhere else for the time being. When you think about it though, that's a crazy thing to do on tour. It's really easy to let an entire tour slip past and miss it all because you've been staring at a laptop. I've done it! There's so many amazing places that want to be seen, and so many amazing tastes that want to be tasted. When I would sit down to write about a town, it was an exercise in being present. At the most basic level, I had to think about where I was at in that moment. In a lot of cases, I would interview people about their town to gather information for lyrics. What is your town famous for? What celebrities are from here? What's the best thing to eat while I'm here?
The third reason I wrote the album this way was that it made for better shows. Have you ever seen a big show like Bruce Springsteen where any time the Boss just mentions the name of the town the whole stadium goes nuts? Well it was just like that.. well not really, but if I came out and sang a song about whatever town I was in, I did feel like more of the crowd was drawn in and more into the show. Most nights the song was not that well rehearsed, but it didn't seem to matter much, and people seemed psyched to hear a song about their town and weren't too worried about the flubbing of lyrics or wandering melodies.
Some of the songs were silly throw-away songs that were good for a laugh that night, but as I wrote more and more, I got a few
keepers. Eventually I knew I had enough for a full album and started recording late nights after work or after band practice. I'd then take that original seed and try to build on it a bit, and flesh it out into a full song as I recorded. I've probably written about 40 or so songs about cities, but for this album I narrowed it down to 20. Some just needed to be cut, and some I just lost the little piece of paper that I wrote the lyrics on."