Where did you guys grow up?

We grew up in a small town in western North Carolina called Wilkesboro –home of the MerleFest. We actually ran the spotlights for most Friday and Saturday nights when we were kids.

What is the song “One Hundred Thousand Miles” about?

It’s just something that’s in the past. We were trying to write a song for this new EP. I guess this was this past February (our EP came out in March). Our history in the music industry is really one of slow-moving, bad big-label stories, you know. We’ve had like years with records on the shelf, so this EP thing has been a lot of fun for us. Because we will go in and record something, and on every EP, it’s been mastered the night before it came out. John Baldwin and those Lake Fever guys have been so amazing to us.

We get an e-mail at like 5 a.m., the day the EP is supposed to be released, and John’s like, “Here’s the link to your master files.” And we’re, like, “Thanks, John. Perfect timing.” And will upload to our website or Bandcamp, you know- put them out that way, because we got the first EPs printed up on CDs which we have on the road with us. But this has been kind of an online release.

But that’s different from Tall Trees then?

Yeah, Tall Trees is a proper record. It’s an LP that came out on vinyl and it kind of went everywhere. We’ve had three EPs, chronologically, in months prior to the record coming out.

Was They Say the first one?

Eden Was a Garden was the first one. Eden came out in November of ’08. Then we did They Say in March of ‘09 and Modern Radio came out in April. We have another one that was set to come out in November, but our label asked us to hold out until February.

Are they all different songs than those on the album?

We’re trying to do it like an old British single, you know. The Smiths and Oasis put out an a-side and three b-sides that you hope are listenable. I used to go to School Kids Records at Chapel Hill and buy these imported CDs. I got so obsessed with the bands that did that well. And then there were those bands that had one good song, and then some remixes and b-sides that were unlistenable.

So did everyone contribute to the writing?

Pretty much, yeah. We all sit around mostly like this. We have a piano in our house and that’s kind of how we operate. Lyrically, everybody contributes. Usually if there’s a deadline, I’ll finish it after everyone’s asleep. But for the most part everyone’s in there and helping out. You know, we’re all family. We have to smell each other’s armpits all the time, you know, so it’s not that difficult to work together artistically for us.

Tell us what the song “Why Modern Radio Is A-OK” is about?

Our friend Thad Cockrell. We’ve known him for years. He’s the one who talked us into moving to Nashville on many levels. We met him at Chris Stamey’s house. He was finishing his Warmth and Beauty record and we were started our Wee Hours Review record with Chris, and he [Cockrell] ended up sleeping on Logan’s couch for six months to eight months or however long. He had this routine where he slept at their house and he’d come check e-mail at our house and then he’d eat dinner wherever he wanted to eat dinner, but he’s a free-ramblin’ man, I suppose.

But anyways, he had come to fall in love with the record Comes a Time, by Neil Young. And we didn’t know that at all. So we put this record on and Thad was in the room plugging away at e-mails, and he turns around totally shocked with tears in his eyes and is like, [sniffs]… I thought like, someone had died, maybe he had just learned it in the e-mail or something, and he’s like, “What are you doing with my favorite record on, man?” And he’s an easily broken-hearted guy as it is, you know, that’s why his music is so good. So I could tell that he had been really torn up by it and all, so we put on something totally bland, apologized and ate whatever we were eating–rice and curry or something.

I felt really bad about it, so a few nights later we kind of wrote that song on how I wonder if somebody as an adult–not like a teenager or something–can sentimentalize a song by the Pussycat Dolls or something when they’re 45 and totally break down the way Thad did to this Neil Young record, you know? I’m skeptical of that. I’m not putting down the music of the Pussycat Dolls. I think their music serves a different purpose for the listener than Neil Young’s records do. Maybe I’m making all that up and don’t know what I’m talking about, but that’s kind of what that song is about. It’s not a nostalgic song particularly, but the character in the song is saying, “All I know is, if I want to get bored, I’ll listen to modern radio and be happily not heart-broken.”

That’s what I like about songs that are sort of humorous, but have this weight to them. You know, kind of doing both things. It’s not taking it too seriously. I’m not putting down the pop music stuff you hear on the radio, but it’s not going to do the same thing that Neil Young is going to do.

I don’t think that all things are relative as far as art goes. Everyone has their own opinions, but I think some opinions are better than others. I think that some art is better than others.