Mat Kearney: Yes I did. I was kind of a punk in high school. By the time I got to the reading section I was nodding off. It was probably because I was up until 4 am the night before. The things I put my poor parents through...

Mat: I wanted to either pursue photography at an art school or play college soccer. I chose soccer, which took me to Chico State in California. However, deep down I have always remained an Oregon Ducks fan. Growing up in Eugene, the Ducks were a very big deal.

Mat: Yeah, those are two of the darker songs. "Moving On" is one of my favorite songs on the record. It was written from a very raw place but ultimately it's about realizing you have to forgive and move on. "Ghost" is one of the sadder songs I've written. It's a random story about loss. There has been some of that in our family, where we've lost someone dear to us. So I really tapped into that and it became a gut-wrenching song.

Mat: I wouldn't call this a road record at all, but I did start a lot of the songs and grooves in backstages across America. This is the first record where I was making a lot of the beats by myself and that's one of the things I'm most proud of this time around.

Mat: Thank you, those are two amazing artists. People have said that I sound a little like Bon Iver when I sing in my falsetto. I get him and Chris Martin even more. I think it has to do with "nasally sounds like I have a stuffed nose" voices.

Mat: She is always the first person that I share my songs with. I was starting a new song about a fight we had had the night before and she said, "I wouldn't say that, I would say this" and it was way better than what I had wrote. She kept saying lines that were amazing and pretty soon we had written the song together.

Mat: It took like 15 takes to get the magic one. Literally from sun up to sun down. So many things had to go right for it to all work; the dancers, me, the drone, the camera operator, traffic. It was a little nuts.

Mat: I met Anis at a "To Write Love On Her Arms" event. My friend Jamie runs the organization for suicide and self-injury prevention. Anis performed that poem and all I remember was trying to hold back tears. We all can relate to the truth that we aren't defined by our circumstances.

Mat: I wasn't aware of that until you mentioned it. I did grow up in Oregon so "rain" is definitely part of my active vocabulary. There are some heavier themes on this record. The last few years have dealt my family some difficult things, so some of the songs were written in the middle of what felt like a wilderness. A lot of these songs were written as prayers, not answers to questions.