I think maybe the vehicle for me was 'Sam Cooke's Greatest Hits.' It has a song called, 'Touch the Hem of His Garment.' Do you know that song? I kind of got obsessed with that song and started exploring and getting more of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers and really getting into that super, super deeply.
I was talking to my publisher, Jamie Ceretta, who's one of my closest confidants and allies when I'm working on new music. I feel like I can always count on his judgement because he'll tell me if he doesn't like something. It's sometimes hard to get people to tell you if they don't like something.
I was always kind of against streaming, but I've been traveling so much, and I usually carry a huge hard drive of digital music with me, but I haven't had time to deal with it, so I've been doing streaming. And I had this incredible breakthrough of weightlessness where I've really been loving streaming music.
Whenever we come back from another project, we're always so stoked to see each other and play with each other again. I really feel like that's been the key to why we're still together as a band. I remember a period five or six years ago feeling a little burnt out and wasn't sure whether I wanted to keep doing it.
Big religion was started with one goal in mind: to make money. And I'm not knocking anyone's faith, because I think there are a lot of good values to be found in any faith. But when any faith starts to get in the way of love, that's where you can tell that greed and fear have stepped in and that those things come from man.