How do you think everything the band went through came out in the new songs?
HW: I know how it came out musically, because I was there watching Taylor come up with all of these riffs and all these things that you’d never been able to hear him express fully, because as much as Taylor played leads onstage, you couldn’t really hear his personality, because there were a lot of guitars on stage. So for me it was really fun to write this record with him, because I think before this record the last time we sat down in a room alone and wrote a song together was when we were 12 and 13 years old. All of a sudden I saw this mad scientist come out of him, and he just became really an incredible producer as well. He was doing all of our demos and all of our tracks for that, and it was great. And that inspired me so much to write the way that I wrote this time around. For the first time, I’m not angry on every song, I’m not spitting lyrics. I’m singing lyrics, and it’s nice. It just feels good. And sure ,there’s still songs where I dig into matters of, you know, matters of, I don’t know, pain, and matters of the heart and more introspective stuff, but I was able to look at that in a new way. I don’t really feel like I’m standing there screaming at a wall anymore. It felt so healthy to write it.
Was the huge success of ”Airplanes” a surprise for you?
HW: Yeah, that was a total surprise. When I heard the song I loved it. I felt like “Wow, this could really be something,” and all the guys were like “Wow, you have to do that, that’s rad.” It just worked out. I love B.o.B., and that sort of partnership seemed to work perfectly, and the song was fun to sing. It couldn’t have been a better first little soiree to that whole scene. I felt really loved and accepted. It was cool.
Do you see yourself doing more of that stuff in the future, as a solo artist?
HW: Um, I don’t know. It depends on what comes along. Especially with this album, I think we all started to see how versatile we are as a band, and maybe in areas we just weren’t willing to open ourselves up to. We sort of – we let ourselves try these things. It depends on what comes along. I’m definitely open to anything that really inspires me, so it just depends on a few things. I definitely don’t feel like it would cause a rift or anything with our band. I think we all support each other in those little adventures.