Your last three albums sort of coincided with the birth of your kids.
There was definitely like the growing-up decision. I don’t want to hide the idolatry. Somebody last week said, “Have your influences changed?” and I was like, “God no.” It’s my ability to communicate them that has become more confident. My first big loves; H.R. Pufnstuf, the Monkees, that kind of media, that kind of well-generated political jest. I don’t think there’s any Rumi children’s book, but Rumi, a wonderful 12th-century Persian, Sufi Islamic poet. I love turning on Islamics to Rumi, quote a little Feeling The Shoulder Of The Lion. They’re like, “What a great story. We shall go look up many Rumi.” He was rich, affluent, had many sons, traveled a great deal into Sufi communities, had a lot of time to meditate, so of course he had a lot of time to write about the mysterioius nature of surrender and being able to be cool, being grateful. I don’t think I was ever ingrateful for my inability to explain the darkness of some of my situations that were very self-created, and I just came off as snappy or angry or jaded, and now I’m just like, “Fuck that, we’ll just tear it up in a different way.”

[Precollection] is all about independence. Not so much break-away unity, inclusive unity. You are a complete drop unto yourself inside the ocean, and the fact that you are water in water should make you very happy. If you look at it as, “I’m surrounded, there’s no way I can get out,” then you are surrounded, and there’s no way for you to get out. [But if you’re like], “I am surrounded, and completed at every turn,” then you are surrounded and completed at every turn.

So you’re surrounded and completed at every turn.
That’s definitely how it is with the children, and it does make it apparent that to be ungrateful around them makes their little shapes jagged and hard. As opposed to “Oh gee, look, you were born with thumbs and now you are dumping a gallon of soy milk on the kitchen floor. There, I am very grateful, now with my thumbs we will all clean up for the man who has no thumbs has to just kind of mop like this, which takes all day. I only have to spend five minutes cleaning up after you. For him, the man with no thumbs, it would take all day.”

Someone was like, “Your kids will just talk to anybody.” No they won’t. They’ll talk to you, though. Do they give jive-ass motherfuckers a chance? They put on their armor, they listen to what they say, and they’re bitching, and they’re like “You don’t say?” I heard that come out of a five-year-old’s mouth, and I was like, “Man. Do not visit with sad neighbors.”

Sitting here talking with you, it’s clear your mind moves pretty fast. Do you have trouble concentrating on one thing?
Very much so. That’s why I don’t drink coffee anymore. That was big, when I let that go. Most amphetamines, unless I find that perfect point of exhilaration where I can minutely focus on the one detail, but that’s just a dangerous combination. I think I’d rather bring in exhilaration through focus, than speed up to find focus. And I think these are things that just came about on this record. Work habits that I’ve been hiding the way I like to do things for 20 years. Ever since my parents split up, me and my penultimate situation vs. the situation I’m in, I’ll definitely feel the need to get out, to get into the next situation before I’ve even really gotten, or even closed up. A Kurt Heasley record of just singing stories, the story record would be incredible. I don’t know if I could ever sit down and have the focus, but if I could, that’s the objective.

On Precollection, your singing sounds different than in the past. You’re not hitting as many high notes. On “Catherine” I thought you were Morrissey for a second.
Sure, exactly, there was a point where he was like, “I just want to hear the meters, I don’t care what you sing, I don’t care about the notes.” We recorded most of the vocals, sang them all in a few days. So once we got the first couple down, he wanted a rhythm, and I was at this point I was not going to do anything but take orders and work to get a personality across. It was more about seeing how I could make a room sound. I can sing higher now better than I could because I don’t smoke as much pot in the studio. This is a pot-free record. Well, it’s not really pot-free but ... more so.