How would you describe your sound?
Loud, fast, rock n’roll music.

What’s the best thing about touring?
Playing a show for a room full of people who like your music is pretty much the most fun thing there is to do. It’s an incredible feeling to perform for people and have them sing along with the songs you’ve written. Getting to travel all over the world doing that every night is pretty much the best job in the world.

Worst thing? Any horror stories?
Life is pretty great these days, but obviously you have low points on tour. Mostly it’s just about how tired you get, which can lead to some negativity. Occasionally there are those moments where you have to deal with stupid people or technical problems. Under normal circumstances things like that aren’t a big deal, but when you’re hungover and exhausted sometimes you’re ready to burn a venue to the ground just because it’s on the second floor and you have to carry all of your gear up a giant flight of stairs. But honestly, at the end of the day, it’s a hell of a lot of fun and you just need to keep things in perspective.

What keeps you sane on the road?
Our tour manager Melissa keeps me from going insane on tour. She’s probably the calmest, most patient person in the entire world, and keeps Brian and I from getting lost, missing shows, disappearing down darkened alleys, etc. We probably would be dead in a ditch somewhere if she wasn’t around.

You guys were close to breaking up before putting out Post-Nothing in 2008; now, having tasted success, do you actually feel more pressure?
We felt we had nothing to lose leading up to Post-Nothing, since nobody knew who we were. By the time we got around to working on Celebration Rock (2012), everything had changed—all of a sudden we were a real band that had toured all over the world and had fans waiting for new material. When we were writing Celebration Rock, we wanted to prove that Post-Nothing wasn’t a fluke, and we pushed ourselves to create an album that was a clear improvement from the last record. We had a lot to prove, and a lot to lose with that record. 2011 was a very stressful year. It was not fun making Celebration Rock. I don’t think it will ever be easy for us to write and record music, but it won’t ever be as difficult as it was making that album.

On that note, any news on your third album?
We’ve been on tour since before Celebration Rock was released, and haven’t had any time to work on new songs, unfortunately. We’re still touring until September, and after that we’ll have some time at home and hopefully can start thinking about what to do next.

So many of your songs seem to involve girls and alcohol; is there really anything more to write about?
I suppose that’s what we spend a lot of our time thinking about, so it was natural to write songs about those two subjects.

Do you enjoy playing on bigger stages these days, or do you prefer the intimacy of smaller venues?
I think they both have their advantages. There is an incredible energy you get playing larger venues and festivals, since you just have so many more people together. But I really love the intimacy of smaller venues. It’s nice being able to interact with the audience on a more personal level, which is a lot harder to do at festivals and bigger shows. It’s good to play a mix to keep things interesting.