So yeah, that would explain why Green puts such an emphasis on reinventing himself. During a recent phone interview with New Times, Green says striving to change is the toughest part of being a musician.
So, what can we expect from the new Beautiful Things album?
There are a lot of songs about my son on the album. I think in general, most of the time recently, when people put out albums, the songs are all about being bummed out or inspired by bad stuff happening. I think Beautiful Things is more inspired by awesome shit: the things in life that you enjoy and the things that make you think and feel. It's not necessarily like an angst-filled album.
The music video for "Dear Child" has a serious animated woodland creature vibe. Any ideas for new videos?
I get ideas all the time for videos, but I don't really have any yet for the new album. I sort of have this idea about making a video be a parody on the hip-hop videos where there's dudes with chicks in bikinis or something the whole time. It would just be like really nerdy, nonconventional-looking men and just superhot ladies all over them. And then tons of not-model ladies with Chippendale types hanging out with them and dancing.
What was the inspiration for "Drug Dealer"?
The song is sort of a meditation on waiting for something to happen to you and thinking it's never going to come. So, just waiting on somebody forever, and you're like waiting for things to change. Waiting for somebody to come in and make some kind of difference. That's sort of what it's about. Kind of a bunch of different things.
What's the most difficult aspect of being a musician?
For me, it's about constantly reinventing what it is that you do. I never really followed a musician that didn't grow. I never want to do the same thing twice, and I just feel like every time you take one step up, you have to take another one from that. As soon as you do something really well, you have to then go and do the next thing really well. And that's the hardest part for every album: doing something better than before.
Do you miss playing Florida?
Yeah, I do. Florida is one of my favorite places to play, either with Circa or solo. It's really weird. Like anytime I play by myself or with Circa, the crowd is always insane, the shows are always incredible, and it's almost like a hometown show when we go there. I wish we could've gotten there more last year, and hopefully we'll get there a lot this year.
At the Culture Room concert, will you be playing both old and new songs?
Yeah, I'll be playing a bunch of new songs from Beautiful Things, and I'm going to play a bunch of songs that I haven't ever played before, acoustic songs that I never tried out that aren't on any of our albums.
