“Slow down // No one ever said this journey was a race // What’s the hurry?”, ‘Slow Down’ – ‘Fight Or Flight’ (2012)

“I didn’t really understand anxiety until later in my adult life. My mom had panic attacks and struggled with anxiety when I was younger, but I didn’t really get it. I was dismissive of it, and I have apologised to her since. I just didn’t understand how crippling it could be. As I moved into my adult life and the traumas built up, something triggered a snap. You don’t know why, but it happens. I began to understand this world that my family, friends and bandmates had fought with because I was suddenly in the middle of it. This line is a reminder to myself to take a deep breath and slow down. You’re going to be okay because the finish line isn’t the end… It’s about the journey.”

“What you say will be forgotten someday // But what you do will be remembered // Empty promises always fade away // The ones you keep will last forever”, ‘Don’t Tell Me’ – ‘Every Man For Himself’ (2006)

“That’s another philosophy of mine, and another thing that I would tell my kids. Talk less, act more. I think everybody’s been on the receiving end of somebody who overpromises and underdelivers, and it’s always better to be on the other side. It’s better to be humble and go about your business. My son plays youth sports, and I’m always telling him that you don’t have to be the guy who goes around telling everyone how great they are. If you’re awesome at something, or if you’re kind, people will tell you that. You don’t have to go around telling people. Most of the people who do that are insecure about it. I feel like confidence is quiet and insecurity is loud. It’s about saying, ‘put up and shut up’, not ‘put up or shut up’. If you just do you, everybody will be better off for it.”

“And I take the first step of a million more // And I’ll make mistakes I’ve never made // But at least I’m moving forward”, ‘Moving Forward’ – ‘Every Man For Himself’ (2006)

“This song is on our third album, which came out as we were coming off the whirlwind success of ‘The Reason’. That put us in a different world, one that we weren’t necessarily trying to get into either. Although it was exciting, there was a lot of pressure, and it was very scary. Generally, I don’t like to live in the past. As a conscious entity, I’m constantly moving. Often, I feel like I’m just a visitor in my own life. Because of that, I never get too excited about positive things, and I never get too sad about negative things. Good or bad, it happened, and now I’m moving forward. I don’t want to sit around and wind up getting stuck. Life is perpetual motion, and you just have to go with its flow.”

“I watch in wonder as you discover // I’m hoping that I find something that reminds me of myself”, ‘Magnolia’ – ‘Fight Or Flight’ (2012)

“Magnolia is my daughter’s name, and she was my firstborn. She’s 15 now, and this song is almost like a diary entry of me staring at my newborn kid. If you listen to it in a quiet place with some good headphones, at the start you can hear a little bit of what sounds like a guitar effect. It’s a whooshing sound, and that’s actually my daughter’s foetal heartbeat at around 10-and-a-half weeks old. My wife bought one of those home recording devices to listen to your child’s heartbeat in your stomach, and I took it from that. When the song was getting mixed, I spoke to the mixer and asked if we could put that heartbeat in there. I sent it to him, and he called me immediately. He asked if I’d edited it at all or sped it up to fit the beat of the song. I hadn’t, and he was like, ‘Dude, it’s exactly the same tempo as the song… It’s perfect.’

This line is the opening line of that song, and it’s an honest insight into my brain. I’m looking at this human being that I am now responsible for, and that I know is genetically half me. I’m overprescribing the little things that she does, saying that they’re like me, or like her mom. It’s about the feeling of loving and caring about something so deeply and so instantly. Nothing really prepares you for that. This song will always have a special place in my heart, even though my daughter hates listening to it!”

“I can still remember when at the tender age of 10 // Mother told me I could be anything at all // Then when I was 17, someone made that choice for me // And if I disagreed, I would end up on the street”, ‘The Pressure’ – ‘Fight Or Flight’ (2012)

“This line is a little look into the life of Doug. My parents were always very supportive of me. They were the type of parents that told me I had the capability to do anything I wanted to. They told me that nothing was holding me back. As you get into your teen years, though, you go from being told that the world is your oyster to being told that if you don’t get a job, you’re getting kicked out of the house. I’m obviously not the only person to ever experience that, and I don’t think that it’s evil. I just think it’s a part of parenting, especially when you care about your kids and want the best for them. From where I was sitting at the time, though, that’s how it felt.”

“Congrats! You did it! Your reasons? Pathetic! // Cheering as the ship goes down // You smile; we panic! Delusions? Titanic! // Laughing as we all might drown // Hope you’re proud!”, ‘How Do You Sleep’ – ‘How Do You Sleep’ (2026)

“There’s a lot of shitty stuff going on in the world, and I feel like there are levels to our anger around it. If you see something that’s wrong, you might get mad, but at a certain point you almost just want to throw your hands up. There’s this sect of people who seem to revel in the suffering of others. They’ve been sucked into this game where they truly believe that in order for them to ‘win’, the other team has to lose. It’s a black-and-white perspective, and I have always argued that life happens in the grey. A black-and-white outlook is simple to digest and intellectually lazy, and it’s in the grey that the real understanding and nuance lie. There’s definitely a political undertone to this song, but that cruelty is not solely coming from one side. Honestly, what the fuck happened to being kind? It feels so much better to be kind, and to treat each other with respect, regardless of how we move through this life. We’ve reached this boiling point of vitriol, and I’m just fucking done with it.”

“Show me what it’s for // Make me understand it // I’ve been crawling in the dark looking for the answer // Is there something more than what I’ve been handed? // I’ve been crawling in the dark looking for the answer”, ‘Crawling In the Dark’ – ‘Hoobastank’ (2001)

“I’m not a religious person, but in this song… I am definitely talking to something. It’s about disillusionment. It’s about not knowing where you fit, or why you don’t fit. You’re seemingly doing all the right things, but you’re getting the wrong results. It’s got this helplessness to it, and you’ve got to remember that this song was written when I was in my early to mid 20s. During that time in my life, I just wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on. Both with me personally, and in society. At the time, you think that there must be an answer. In my wise old age though, I’ve realised that there is no answer to it. It’s a perpetual wonderment, and you have to find some comfort in not knowing. When you’re young, that’s much harder to do. Back then, there was so much I wanted to know about life, about what was happening, and why I am the way that I am. Really, there’s no way to ever know, and that frustration leaked into those lyrics.”

“I’m not a perfect person”, ‘The Reason’ – ‘The Reason’ (2003)

“These are the lyrics that have been recited back to me the most in the history of our band. Usually, everybody latches onto the words of the chorus, but for some reason with this song it’s the first line. ‘The Reason’ is the song that has allowed us to have a career for as long as we have, and I’m really grateful that so many people have connected to it.

I’ve been asked for decades who the song is about, and I think most people assume I’m talking about my significant other. The truth is, I was actually in a really happy relationship when I wrote it. Like anybody, though, I’d been through many ‘failed’ relationships, and I had all of these little spiral notebooks filled with diary-like thoughts from throughout those times. When I got the music through from Dan [Estrin, guitar], I remember listening to it in my apartment and flicking through that stack of notes. I got a pencil and started circling things that stood out. They were never intended to be lyrics; they were just things I had written down after I’d broken up with a girl, or she had broken up with me. ‘I’m not a perfect person’ was one of those lines.

The whole song is made up of moments taken from different relationships. Years later, someone said to me, ‘Oh, so the song is about you then’, and that really stuck with me. I’m the only constant in ‘The Reason’. The people I’m singing about change, but I’ve always been making the same stupid mistakes. It was a song for me to realise that I needed to better myself, not for one specific person, but for myself and for my future relationships.”