I just talked about some of the themes of the album it and it start with the title because I feel like that played a really big role just when having listened to it now start to finish and knowing what it means what did it mean to you how did it influence the themes of the record like just give us an overview of the deeper side of the album not just the music and the order of the music well regarding the title that I feel like that made the
rest of the album come together so quick after we knew that that was a title because we had made barrier friends before that was the title obviously it was like I think we were a little bit lost in you know what's the cuz we didn't have a title we didn't have a theme we didn't have and that's important to you guys right especially if you're writing in character you have to have things that characters can
attach themselves to yeah exactly and it was just kind of a blank I think we were in sort of a blank place and then we created a very a friend and when they all fall asleep where do we go what's the better it was just a lyric and that was the first thing that you can say you sort of had that kicked the album off that song that song everything about that song no cuz for me like I mean me and Phineas or not we
were both talking about this last night which is that like we both have a complete sort of different idea of what the album means to us and again that's that's why I like this yeah that that even the two people that made the album we both have opposite ideas alright well let's get the definitive Dan I know you like to keep it open but I've got you here in Paris and there's no leaving for at least another 45
minutes so what if they haven't mean to you so the album is basically what happens when you fall asleep so it's sort of for me like every song in the album is you know there's sleep paralysis there's night terrors nightmares lucid dreams all things you can't understand all things that don't have an explanation and like even if you try to give me a explanation it's nobody nobody knows nobody knows absolutely nobody knows you can't tell
me that you know why we have to lay in a bed pretending that we're asleep until we actually fall asleep and then we lay there and then we dream of this alternate universe and then suddenly we're awake and it feels like it's been a second when really it's been eight hours that doesn't make sense to me sleep and not sleep has been a very big part of my life like I've I've always had really really bad night terrors and
I've had sleep paralysis like five times and I all my dreams are lucid so I can kind of control them and like I know that I'm dreaming when I'm dreaming so I like I don't even know and and then you know sometimes I'll have dreams where the thing that was in my dream will happen the next day and and I'll I'll it's so weird it's so perfect your reality if you're so connected it's really bad sometimes like kind of like I
think it was like probably a year and a half ago I had the same reoccurring nightmare for two months that just like a loop a loop it was the same dream every single night and sometimes it was different people in the dream but everything happened the same and it really just like me up for it the whole two months and it affected me in my life like it affected the way that I've viewed things and how I was you
know talking to people and how I was thinking and like I just was different and I and it was because of my dreams it was like changing me as a person and I've had them since I was younger you know I used to have them all the time and so not like the whole album is is literally me saying I dreamed that it's not like that it's the feeling and and each song off the album is like you know there's a song that's sleep paralysis
there's there's songs very friend sleep paralysis and like just nightmares the whole video is supposed to be a recurring nightmare so it repeats three times in the video and that's the character you play in the video I'm the monster under the bed my own monster under my own bed I'm my own worst enemy and then you know it's it's it's not that the whole dream or the whole album is a bad dream it's
more that the whole album is has this surreal nature to it that's so real exactly you can hear it I love you is a is about love and that's not it doesn't have anything to do with dreams but it it does in a way because love is this kind of overpowering feeling but that is just terrifying and dangerous and controls you and and then there are songs that are like an amazing dream or you know maybe your life is so good the
other bad dream and then you wake up and you feel so much better because your life is amazing and your dream wasn't or you'd have a shitty life and you have a good dream and then you wake up and you're back in your shitty life I'm sort of the four most like I still have dreams that I haven't studied for an exam that's cold I had a real issue with school like I had this thing made because I lived early or didn't finish my degrees or any
that stuff I had this total panic recurring sort of dream that I walk into a class and I just am so unprepared for this mess see we never went to school so we don't got that problem kids man like a dream this year that we were like we were playing like Dodger Stadium and we had no gear no instruments they're like you're playing Dodger Stadium have a great show and it was a good game I did a show in a bra and underwear me I don't
even wear a bikini when I go swimming this is one of the things actually the UM I think is has been really kind of picked up on in a really positive way is that you are just you and you haven't fallen to any of the pre-designed conventions of what you need to do in order to get attention yeah yeah for sure how do you how do you sort of feel about being someone who just by being as soft as falling into
that kind of position because I think a lot of kids look at you and go great someone finally isn't playing the game I love meeting these kids are just like don't give a and they say they don't give a cuz of me and that's just a feeling I can't even describe and it's not like they don't give a about people or about love or about taking care of yourself and whatever like it's that you don't have to like fit into anything because it won't
matter one day so it's like why the try to be something you're not you know I'm saying I don't know I think beyond that as well you tap into this kind of sense of anxiety in this and this tension that kind of exists now and I watched the way that information travels and I watched the effects it has on my kids and and and just generally in society and I'd imagine that you've felt all those things that everyone else is
feeling and that's to some degree driving your creative spirit is to kind of express that and make an appeal to people through that lens as well do you have you been affected by anxiety depression things like that nearly depression was like has you know controlled sort of like everything in my life for my whole life I've kind of always been a melancholy person you know I feel like there are some people that
neutrally they're kind of happy happy yeah crazy to me it's really insane to me Phineas put it in a really smart way of putting it which was that somebody said like you know somebody that we knew that was kind of always a cheerful happy person was like you know they were like you know I feel sad sometimes she goes she goes I'm not happy all the time and I said yeah but I'm not happy all the time which is extreme and there are
moments of profound joy and Billy and I share a lot of them but I think they're you know whatever whatever you're at when your motors off it's like your default exactly yeah it's okay didn't like I feel like people are just so weird about it because people that that that aren't neutrally unhappy don't understand how it is because they're like well why are you unhappy all the time when you have that
like that's why your music is resonating so much though because it's speaking that language that others either don't know how to or afraid to speak yeah so I've experienced this myself in my life and in my family life I've seen it and it's hard I think for loved ones to kind of recognize that someone you care about is unhappy feel responsible for that sure you know and you got to realize you're not like it's better to
understand and to go through the journey go down the road and rather than try to block it off and you and your music goes down the road what you guys make goes down the road that's the cool thing about I think it goes we try to send it further down the road than we ourselves go most of the time interesting so you use it as a way to get further you sobs as well yeah it's a little bit like dropping a drubbing a rope down a well
and seeing how far down there's you know a water line or whatever and you going oh that's where it is that's where it you know Peaks off and and and you know we're able to sort of get that that expression yeah the way that we feel out without maybe you know really wallowing in you know depression or sadness sometimes sometimes it's unavoidable but and the two of you having experienced that as siblings obviously you found a
way to communicate through music but how are you when you're not making music you're able to support each other through those times as well because it's kind of interesting that both of you had the default position of being unhappy I think we're I think it's we're better at it with music you know I think we make each other laugh a lot and and we entertain each other and we you know empathize and sympathize with whatever
the other ones you know got going on but I think I think it has been a great source of sort of companionship and comfort to be able to write about how each of us are feeling with the other I mean you know the song I love you is like I feel so lucky to have been like able to to make that song with Billy because to me it was like there's no conversation we could have had that would have I think articulated all of
those sentiments in the way that writing we didn't even talk about know we just wrote the song yeah cuz we see each other in a way that like doesn't require needing to tell each other like and and you know that's also regarding like the way that Phineas looks at the album when she was explaining to me yesterday and you know you can explain what you were saying to me but I just was I just was thinking like he sees me as I am and not
instead of like going into a session and being like you know with a total stranger I mean like this was this is what's going on and this is a five-point plan of what we should write about today exactly yeah that's literally what it is but it's like we as humans everyone I mean we're not very good at self evaluating is that what's the word is uh-huh self self evaluation examiner yeah like we're not
it's hard to evaluate ourselves that's what I meant yeah like I don't I think when we you know we talked to a stranger about how we're feeling they only hear our side and so they assume that we know what we're talking about but you know I've felt things that I try to describe and people that live with me and that are around me are like that's not at all how you're feeling I can see how you're feeling and you know you I think we just
all lie to ourselves and the thing about the way that me and Phineas make music is he can see it and I feel like we've been in circumstances where we're writing a song and I just can't say what I'm feeling whether it's I don't even know yeah or I don't feel comfortable I don't I'm not like comfortable enough to really say it and and specifically with a song we wrote like he just I was completely lost in what I was trying to
say I couldn't figure it out and he just sat there and he just wrote exactly what it was and it worked because he sees it he was saying last night that the album to him is like a coming-of-age album it's more it's me I don't know you put it better than I can well I just think that like like Billy's Billy's sort of approach to it on this front of dreams and your subconscious and I love all of that and to me I think
as a as an observer of it it's a character studying like who-who Billy is and it's like all of her windows open you know into who she is and there's a lot of like firsts on this album not like now like the first kind of song we made with this kind of beat like first like I fell in love for the first time you know from Billy you know you mean like I feel like you only get one shot at that you know I mean like debut album
like I don't know it's like you have a million chances to make it happen you're proud of whatever but like to write the first song of your life of like really truly like falling in love with a person and having to come to terms with that and stuff like you know those are the those are the things that you're sort of confronted with when you're making an album when you're 17 you know it's like things like that things like Billy
drives now you know just like little things that I haven't heard that song is that on the record I know which one you're talking about with regards to love but you know I haven't heard the one where you've got you drop past your driver's license do you really drive mm-hmm a terrible I'm actually really good you I like a sensible driver yeah you're on I really want to go fast but something tells you them I yeah yeah