Meditating. Photo Courtesy of Fat Wreck Chords
Along the topic of words, what is your favorite word and why?
One of the words that I really like to use is ummm…okay, how would I put it in a sentence…do you know Sisyphus? He was a Greek god who was doomed to the underworld to roll a boulder up a hill over and over again for eternity. Basically, when he would get to the top of the hill, it would roll back down the hill and he would have to go back and do it again. So sisyphean is a word I use a lot when something is futile and you have to keep doing it over and over again. If something is sisyphean it means it’s a hopeless endeavor and you have to keep fucking do it over and over for eternity! [laughs] That’s a word I like to use a lot when I’m having a hard time with something.
Well thanks again Ezra, this has been a pleasure…
One more thing, this is a surfing website right?
Yeah.
I just want to say that I feel like a lot of what music is and what songwriting is is the exact same thing, in essence, as what surfing is. I don’t surf super well, but I’ve done it a little bit and I did some surfing in Australia when I was over there years ago, and I feel like I probably get the idea of what it’s all about.
To me, writing music and playing music is all about being in a meditative sort of state where you feel at peace and focused away from the world. I’m pretty sure that surfing comes from the same place.
A lot of times when I’m writing I go to what I call my SRP – my Specially Relaxed Place. That’s the place where I try to induce myself into a state of meditation where I don’t have to worry about anything else that’s going on in the world – not politics, not people, not drama or anything else that is going on. A lot of times I’ll go out walking with my headphones on and that will take me to my SRP. I like being near the ocean too so I’ll go sit by the ocean and just get myself in that “outworldly”, trance state. That’s when music will really happen for me and just come to me in waves that I can’t control. I feel like surfing probably comes from that same sort of self-awareness induced SRP-type thing. If readers of your website understand that then I think they’ll probably understand our band really well.
Do you have any plans to surf soon?
I’m planning to go out to California and surf then, but I’ll probably crash on my ass and hurt myself. I’ll end up getting stung by a jellyfish and taken to the hospital or some ridiculous shit most likely, but you can always get up and try again, right?
It’s sisyphean.
Exactly. Totally sisyphean.
