I just felt something was missing from my vision of what Tycho should eventually be. It took several years of learning new recording and production techniques to get to a point where I felt I could make a record like 'Awake.'

I think of the Tycho sound as something separate from the band. I think the methodology and approach to production I use on the Tycho records can be applied to a lot of things. But from a performance and songwriting perspective, yes, Tycho is a live band.

Moving to San Francisco affected me in a pretty profound way, in a lot of respects. I think it helped me evolve my sound and think outside of the space I'd been in in Sacramento. The scene there is so insular and kind of feeds on itself: you just end up playing the same shows with the same people for the same people.

In the beginning, I was truly trying to take what I felt when I was in a field or in an outdoor space and directly translate it into the music.

There is a quiet place in Hawaii where, for over thirty years, I've gone to draw inspiration and write many of my books.

I am big on writing to-do lists and having new goals to reach all the time, as it keeps me motivated and inspired.

I routinely interview college students, mostly from top schools, and I notice that their brains are like old maps, with lots of blank spaces for the uncharted terrain. It's not that they lack for motivation or IQ. It's that they can't connect the dots when they don't know where the dots are in the first place.

You learn to rise above a lot of bad things that happen in your life. And you have to keep going.