With Cookie Mountain receiving such good reviews and featuring somebody like David Bowie on it, did you feel like the bar had been raised pretty high for this record going into it?
Gerard Smith: No, and I just keep saying the saying the same thing: We’re always so busy and preoccupied and we’re so old and curmudgeonly that we’re not these awestruck kids. Not to say that we’re too cool for school or that we’ve got some sort of confidence, but everyone is more interested in the craft of what it is that we’re doing. And it’s not like we’re in the scenario where we’re being goaded by label executives to come up with a hit or that we have people coming into the studio. The recording process is isolated—or at least a lot more isolated than, say, Cookie Mountain. Cookie Mountain seemed more in line with previous records and working with the same sonic palette as Desperate Youth, at least to my ears. I don’t know if you’d agree, but did you go into this record trying to make something more eclectic or to depart from the past? GS: Not to sound like a complete asshole, but having two vocalists and two primary songwriters in terms of lyrics and vocal melodies is fuckin
