You wrote your new album, To The Races (Saddle Creek), while living in your tour van. How’d that work out for you?
When I returned from touring Europe in June 2005, I was a bit low on cash and didn’t want to pay the high rents in Seattle. I would be touring a lot in the fall and didn’t need a permanent home. I had placed what few things I owned in storage and already had a post-office box, so I figured it’d be easy enough to just sleep in my van. I have a cot for sleeping, a fold-up chair, a guitar, some blankets and a few cases of bottled water. I have a membership to the YMCA to take showers and maintain some kind of dignity by trying to stay in reasonable shape. Mostly I park around the Ballard/Crown Hill area in Seattle because there are a lot of side streets that seem safe, and I know of a 24-hour Kinko’s nearby so that if I need to use the restroom seriously, I can go in unnoticed. That area is fairly quiet, too, which I like because I can work on writing songs and recording them into my MiniDisc recorder without too much traffic noise in the background. It’s really good if you want to focus and get a lot done.
