Jonny Pierce says that The Drums’ new album Jonny is “a little less practice, a little more mess.” That messiness finally made songwriting enjoyable for him because for a long time, it wasn’t. “I never loved songwriting. I was never the type of songwriter who couldn’t wait to get to the studio,” Pierce says on the podcast. It was always something stressful, he said, because he equated it with literal survival.

But now Pierce is trying something different: the mess. Which includes, as you’ll hear, slithering down walls. And he’s much happier for it.

Jonny is out on ANTI- records.