I was invited into a writing session out at River's house, and I was immediately excited to get to meet him. We all wrote in this little room with a bunch of great gear and I tried not to nerd-out once he started throwing out melody ideas. I was definitely a lifelong fan from the moment I heard The Sweater Song as a kid. The best part about that experience was seeing how he built this story that we sort of outlined together.

The songs about some kids who are hell-bent on leaving DC for no other reason than to drive away from their lives back home (actually, since I don't speak Japanese, I don't know if it's still about that). He kind of made up this movie in his head where they almost get caught breaking into a Home Depot. We got to help with the details more or less, and I got to hear the word "perambulations" fit perfectly into a verse.

I'm pretty sure the first title was "Break Loose" and the song just kind of went away from my mind for years until I heard a final version out of nowhere. It's not every day you get an email with the lead singer of Weezer singing Japanese.