To me, one of the most ideologically interesting songs on the record is “Sensitive Guy.” It’s kind of an acknowledgment of privilege but also not knowing exactly what to do with that. There’s the somewhat tongue-in-cheek line, “I’m such a sensitive guy, even my tears cry.” What was the impetus behind that?

I think it sort of started as a joke song. You have a lyric that comes to you, and you’re drawn to it. Maybe it’s a little bit stupid, but it’s memorable. “I’m such a sensitive guy, even my tears cry.” I think the image is pretty striking. I think that it tells a story, even though it’s a little bit goofy. The first lyrics come from a pretty goofy place of someone who is a bit sensitive, and then about halfway through it sort of shifts, and I started thinking of things that I was actually sensitive to. Like drone strikes—a government that kills extra-judicially—that’s something I still feel sensitive about and still think about as an American living abroad, as someone who represents America in whatever small capacity. Not like an official representation, but national identity. When you leave your country and travel abroad, you are always in some way a representative of your country. There are things about American politics that bother me, and one is extra-judicial killing. That’s something—as a sensitive guy—that I’m actually sensitive about. So there’s this shift about halfway through the song. The first line is about my grandmother, who passed away while I was on the last tour, so I say, “Whenever I look above at a beautiful blue sky/I think about my Nana’s love and the feelings multiply.” That’s something that I was feeling sensitive about at the time. And then, “Whenever I look above at a beautiful blue sky/I think about the States getting extra-judicial on the sly.” Which [references the fact] drone strikes can only happen on a clear day. The final line is, “I know that my money brings pain to others lives,” and that’s about paying taxes to a government that performs violent acts. Maybe it’s stupid, I don’t know, but there’s a shift to something that I’m passionate about and think about and worry about all the time.

So in writing these songs—like “Dangerous Animal,” about the dichotomy of the way you’re living your and the idealism you feel about climate change—do you think they help you deal with those things, and is there a goal to writing these sort of songs for the long run?

I think it is kind of trying to understand where I come from, how I’m feeling and why I’m feeling those ways. So, “Dangerous Animal” is about my disdain for climate change denialism. It’s something that the world agrees on, and the Republican Party is the only party with power in a major nation that denies it, and it’s something that has the greatest stakes of anything that’s going on right now. I guess the metaphor is a bit like “Winter is coming” from Game of Thrones. If the Earth gets too hot, at a certain point we’re all wiped out and we’re no longer around fighting. At the same time, I know that I have a much larger footprint, probably than the average climate change denier—I eat meat; I’m a touring musician—and that’s something that I feel guilty about. I don’t know that writing a song from that perspective necessarily makes it better, but it is a way for me to try to maybe reckon with it. Because I am a hypocrite in some ways, and I don’t necessarily live purely within the stances of my beliefs, and I think that trying to write songs from that perspective is a goal, I guess. It’s some acknowledgement of my flaws.

The album’s first single, “PHILOSOPHY!,” is a good one to start with, to let people know what the album is about. Was it written from the perspective of a personal relationship, or is it more of a political, right-versus-left sort of thing?

I was trying to do both. There is clearly a narrator over-intellectualizing—he’s not necessarily a sympathetic narrator. They say, “no time for philosophy,” but then they keep quoting all these philosophers. But yeah, it’s a song about viewing what’s happening as a huge communication breakdown.

Do you, as a musician, have any advice to Americans for something that can be done about that?

Here’s something that I’ve been thinking about: I was really, really distraught after the election. The reason why is because I felt like there would be real-world consequences, and people’s lives are going to be directly affected. If you’re feeling distraught, I would say find something that’s going on that is a result of this election and find a way to fight it—whether it be by protest, by volunteering, or by giving some money. There are plenty of areas where, through the current administration’s agenda, things have have been shut down, whether it was the travel ban, etc. I will say, I was in LA finishing the record when that executive order was released, and the next day—I was feeling so, so angry, because it’s insanely stupid, and it’s illegal, as has been proven by the courts—I wound up going to LAX and protesting and being around like-minded people. It made me feel like I was doing something. My advice would be to find things that are happening that upset you and find ways to counter them.

Going to protests like that and feeling that way, do you think that helps people turn those feelings into action?

Yeah, of course. One thing that’s been happening are these ICE-raids. There’s just been deportations happening at a mass level. They were bad under Obama, but much worse right now, and you have a situation where people are afraid to show up at court dates if they’re undocumented, because ICE is showing up at courthouses and taking people who are just legally trying to attend their court hearing into custody and taking them out of the country. So there are great organizations that you can volunteer at or give some money to. The Immigrant Defense Project is something I just gave some money to. That would be my advice: If you’re distraught with what’s happening, take action.

In “I’m Not Curious,” one of the lines is, “I’m envisioning things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.” Is that from the anger from the election, etc.?

Yeah, it goes back exactly to what that last answer was. There’s really bad things happening, things I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I wrote that one, and “Shame In My Name,” in the week after the election. It was the experience of getting these phone alerts and seeing everyone who was going to be installed in the government and feeling kind of horrified by the way things were headed. So that’s why I’m saying, “I’m not curious anymore.”

And the final track, “Be Mine”—it strikes me as more of a love song, a positive end the record.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a release. I finished the record, and then they asked if I would be willing to write another track. Bruce Lampcov, who mixes my music, worked with Bruce Springsteen on Born in the USA, and apparently when that record was being made, their label asked Bruce Springsteen to write another song, and he wrote “Dancing in the Dark.” And I said, “Who the fuck am I not to write another song?” I wrote that one in March, I guess, so it would’ve been a little after the rest of the record. I was seeing a lot of opposition to some of the things I was really worried about, and having this sweet love song at the end kind of does form a little bit of release on the record.

Do you feel that—even though you weren’t necessarily contributing full songs to Vampire Weekend—that the songwriting, recording and performing with that band influenced your solo music? “The Key is Under the Mat” sounds like a very Vampire Weekend song.

Yeah, it’d be hard not to be influenced; it’s a huge part of my life. I think everything I ever do in one way another will be influenced by it. Even Rostam, seeing Rostam be a producer. When the band started, I didn’t know anything about producing. I didn’t know that you could do that, that you could know that much about production. It’s always very inspiring, and it’s always going to be a part of my life.

I don’t know how much you can say, but I know a lot of people are curious about the pro-gress being made on the new Vampire Weekend album and the return of that band.*

Yeah, and it’s nice that there was the definitive update from Ezra [Koenig] a couple of weeks ago on his Instagram. People should know that the record is coming. It’s not imminent, but everyone should be excited for it. I find I don’t necessarily like to talk about music before it’s started coming out in the world—or especially before it’s finished—because when you’re in the process of making a record, you’re sort of in the process of figuring out what it’s going to be, so I don’t want to set up any kind of expectation. Just know it’s coming and people should be really excited. I’m really excited.

I know Rostam is not an official part of the band, but is he still working with you guys, as a producer or anything?

Just keep it open. Open ended. It’s coming. The world of the record is going to be an interesting and exciting one.

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