Sitting typing on my laptop, “do you ever enjoy the day?” she's says. So do you ever go outside and just appreciate it or do you always have to be doing something?’ just because I like to work, get things done. You know. That's funny. Yea I enjoy the day. Just because I'm sitting here writing doesn’t mean I am not enjoying the day. 

Weird things now. Francis and la Princesa and G2 all saying the same thing after the show last week. In different ways. Don't worry so much. Don't try so hard. Don't be so concerned if your voice cracks or if the band plays well or if you make a huge success or about trying to change the world. I think that from this point on I will do that. I'm tired. Man am I tired. I am tired of working so hard. I am tired of worrying about every little thing with the band and the music and my career. But the fact is that I love making music. I love singing and performing and recording. I really love recording albums. Creating something from nothing. You know, albums, good ones, can be like movies, like big paintings. Little worlds. This last year since the release of rise and shine has been very exciting but very traumatic as well. Rise and shine has been out for about nine months now and we get CD reviews from strangers and emails and letters from all over the world. That's a good thing. It's just taken me some time to adjust to it, to get used to turning off. For the majority of my career I had to get used to being ignored. Since rise and shine I have had to get used to all the attention and all the opinions that come with all the attention. The major record labels, the few we have approached have been so totally idiotic about the album that it is no wonder that current albums are not these magnificent magnum opuses that they used to be in the seventies and sixties (except for a few by Radiohead, u2 and sigur ross).

This guy Kaplan from Sony Records up in New York has turned us down three separate times, maybe four. Our manager approached him jumping up and down about rise and shine. His answer? It's too much music. Too many different styles on their album. I love those first four songs. Tell them to make a whole album of modern rock and then we can talk. O.k. that's truly hilarious because that was exactly what we didn't want to do on Rise and Shine. I mean we worked very hard not to do that. I love what we created. Our fans love rise and shine exactly for that reason, how it careens from style to style so effortlessly. Like taking you on different trips, but these record executives have so lost touch with the music listening public. They are letting their decisions be dictated by little kids. Its really funny. I mean we think it's funny because we are still selling tons of cds on our own without their help. And we know how much people love the music on our album. O.k. so then the vp of promotion at Sony gets the CD and falls in love with it for the same reason, so she goes and gives it to kaplan’s assistant and she falls in love with it and so they go to kaplan together and tell him you gotta hear this band out of Miami and their new album rise and shine and he says to them oh yea I already heard that and turned it down.. fucked up.

So he wants us to make an album full of songs that all have the same vibe that all sound the same. So we can be like all these other modern rock bands out now where you get to the fourth song on the CD and you want to change it because you're bored?????? God that is really funny. And stupid and hideous. So no we’re not going to do it. No way. We like our album. The same thing happened with Electra records. The regional rep who heard it in New York when our manager took it to him loved it so much supposedly that he was jumping up and down his office about it. He really thought he found something fantastic but he had to get it by the president of the company. Some woman high up. lot of respect out to her for all of her accomplishments. I don't know her but the talk of the town is that she is good at what she does. Her answer? They’re not hard enough. Hard is what's happening. All the more reason to sign us. Hello? I'm the one who has to break it to the band. We got turned down again. We’re not hard enough. Creed staind nickel back disturbed system of a down. All those bands are hard and yea they are all making it. But we don't want to sound like that. There's already a hundred bands trying to sound like that. And you know, wilco, travis and coldplay et al are all doing just fine without that generic heavy-guitar angst-ridden-singer sound that modern rock radio is so filled with.

 listen to the boys.

The record execs are always the last to know. That's why radio has sucked for so long. We like the way we sound and so do our fans. So we’re just going to keep on doing it. I would rather make a whole album of noise and feedback which would actually be very cool rather then try to make an album that sounded like modern rock radio right now which I don't even like.

I told the producer who is working our new album right now, listen, I know we all want a hit out of this and God knows we need the money, but we’re going for something artistic and innovative first and then a hit after that. o.k.? he rolled his eyes. oh fuck Fishy why are you telling me this now?! Yes I want to sell records but more than that I want us to walk away feeling like we created a fucking masterpiece something fresh and new and exciting. And these record execs have the exact opposite viewpoint. They tell our manger that the transcendence are in too many different directions… too many styles. They cant categorize us or focus us to one demographic. And they're whole trip is making hits. Can you imagine? Look there are no fucking rules when it comes to art. no offense cause a lot of these guys making these decisions are cool people and would probably make great dinner guests because of their wealth of knowledge and love of music. But they can shove it up their ass. There are no rules and there is no such thing as too musical or not hard enough or needs to sound more modern (the strokes?) or needs to sound more consistent (the white album?). You either hit or you don't hit. Period. [Its attitudes like this that make great artists like Aimee Mann or Prince or Edie Brickel invisible to most of the world even though they are still making great music] Making hits is their number-one goal. And you know that's fine. If you are a football team your goal is to win, and I guess playing the game enjoying the game comes second to that when you go pro, but for me I just get off on the art of it, on the possibility for innovation and invention. And if you can get a hit out of it, then fuckin a, that would be great. But lets not all sit around and worry about what people are going to think about our art. Man if an artist goes there, any kind of artist, that's the beginning of the end. People panned AI by Steven Spielberg. But if you look at it as an artistic statement, you know, a piece of art, then you can really enjoy it. Same with amnesiac by Radiohead. Even fans hated it. but they really made something mind-blowingly refreshing there and that's what art should be. to me. of course, I'm no more right than wrong about this, like anyone else. It's just my opinion. But for me that's what works. Great art is even better when it achieves commercial accessibility and a good measure of innovation and invention and originality. Something beautiful and innovative and commercially accessible. But if I had to choose I would always choose the commercial accessibility last. And I guess that's why I have never achieved it. rise and shine was the first time I thought about it. In Shattered we absolutely refused to even think about it. we were just trying to get off. And I think now I want to go back to that. just making music and art and getting off on it  and not worrying about the business of it so much. Because the fact is that most of the time you can really smell that. the whole industry is filled with it, radio and magazines and MTV. All that eminem pdiddy nsynch Britney jlo and all that shit and the primary motivating force to that whole scene the big vibe they give off is ‘I want a hit I want to be popular do you still love me am I still cool I'm Mr. Cool badass number one right?’ well that's not music or art. I don't even know if it's entertainment. I don't know what it is. It reminds me of high school and that's why I quit as soon as I was old enough to. 

Current Spin: Caetano Veloso, Live in Bahia. Non stop, three days. That and Wilco’s summer teeth, and the Vines new one is fun.

Last Movie: Shang Hai noon with Owen Wilson. God that guy is funny.