“When we were making The ’59 Sound, everybody was excitedly throwing out ideas in the studio. We were all free to create. If I was going to give anybody advice based on what I learned from those sessions, I would say, ‘Create the thing, then judge it.’ There’s no way I’d put a Counting Crows reference [on High Lonesome] in a punk song, if I thought about it from a criticism standpoint. But then I said, ‘Well, why not? I like it!’ That’s the beauty of the record, and the spirit of it.
“The moment I realised, ‘Whoa, this is way bigger than I thought!’ was 100 per cent Glastonbury. At that point we looked around and it was like, ‘Well, nobody else played with Bruce Springsteen today!’ We’re from New Jersey, literally no-one knew us, and then one of the best songwriters on the face of the planet was suddenly a fan. That was a prize. In the past I would get irritated that everybody focused on the Bruce connection – they were using something positive to try to make it negative, and I feel like: shame on them, not shame on us. We were just trying to be ourselves and do what we thought was good. In hindsight, I’m proud of that.
“There were also hard times during that period. We had a lot of attention, but we were poor as poor could be. I was living with my parents, and our van was the biggest focus: we were like, ‘If we don’t have enough money for the van, how are we going to get to the next show?’ It was rough, and that’s one of the reasons lots of bands don’t get there, because those times are so hard. Sensible people would stop and be like, ‘This isn’t a good idea!’ But we’re not sensible people (laughs).
“If people can find inspiration in something we do then that’s cool. If anybody wants to say that we inspired them to do something – especially something creative – then I’m thrilled. It’s the biggest compliment. I look back on the record and I play the songs now and I think, ‘Man, I’m glad we did it.’ There’s not a note that I would change.”