The defining moment for "Black & Golden" came when we were recording in the studio in Memphis. I was playing a totally different version of the song live, to a beat I had made on an SP-404 sampler, that was weird and syncopated, inspired by a Haitian drumming class I was taking at the time.

When I sat at the kit to lay down the drums, Jake Rabinbach, who produced the record, asked me to instead play a super simple, Moe Tucker-inspired beat, digging into the floor tom instead of the hi-hat. What we ended up with was a driving, rock & roll rhythm that really captured the sound and spirit of the song.

Dropping out the beat at the end was always how I heard the song in my head, with the harmony lines coming in one at a time, but adding that big kick drum really brought the song home.

It took us an entire year to shoot the music video for "Black & Golden", starting in Chinese New Year 2012 and ending on New Year's Day 2013.