How do you characterize The Avalanche in relation to Illinois?

These songs are accessories to the Illinois record. I just think a lot of these songs on The Avalanche are experiments or musical exercises. That’s not to undercut them at all, because I think some of them are really interesting and meaningful. I just think it’s almost more like a technical exercise to try to refine and restructure them in a way that sounds cohesive. And it kind of brings to a conclusion my methodology [of] how I wrote and constructed songs for the past year. I don’t think I’m ever going to do a project like Illinois again. It was so expansive.

When you invest so much of yourself into a state, how do you find your relationship with it changes?

For me, it’s a process of demystification and taking abstract ideas and historical information and geography – all these variables – and amassing them into a concrete shape. It’s basically creating something and then coming to terms with it, kind of like when Dr. Frankenstein meets the monster. Through the relationship, there’s a weird kind of intimacy between doctor and monster and they each become humanized. I think that’s a good way of describing my relationship with my work.

On Illinois, songs like “John Wayne Gacy Jr.” were as much about their subjects as they were platforms for your own personality to shine through. “The Mistress Witch From McClure” feels like that here.

Most of my music is about me. You can argue that the Illinois record is more about me than it is about Illinois. In some ways, that’s always been my intention – to use songwriting as a process of discovery. Even if I’m writing about some unknown shipping town in Middle America, for me, I have to find a way to render that through my own experience. So a lot of the songs are really personal, even though they describe regional details and information.

As a songwriter with so many ideas, do you feel like there are times you could benefit from an editor?

Oh, yeah. I think I could’ve used that on the Illinois record. I got sort of uncensored and unmeasured, having spent 12 months alone in the studio, and things got out of hand and I created 40-plus songs. But I think at the time, it was important for me to do as much writing as I did and sort of indulge in the material. Now, I think I need to slow down and make sure I’m not repeating myself. The last thing I want to do is the same thing twice.