Crossover Potential

"This song is about hanging out with Brian Grant and practicing our asses off. It’s about being ignored by people. I’m sort of embarrassed by this one because I sound like I have a little-man complex. I remember reading a Doug Marsch interview where he says, 'It sucks not having your own sound.' That really stuck with me. When we did Nothing Makes Sense, I was really doin’ my thing, you know? And someone said, 'Hey, you guys sound like Karate!' And I went, 'Who’s Karate?' And once I finally heard them I just said, 'Fuck.' And a year later I’m on tour in Omaha and I see this 17-year-old called Bright Eyes and all I can think is, 'This kid does Kind Of Like Spitting way better than I do.' In a struggle to find my own voice, I’ve always fallen over someone else’s. I wonder if my best lines are just stolen from a collective. ‘Cause there’s nothing original about being sad. Crossover Potential is weird for me. There was this desperate feeling when we did Bridges. This all-or-nothing feeling. We were trying to say, 'Pay attention to us! Please!' But now I’m realizing how much better it was when nobody paid attention. Because once people started paying attention, everyone kind of realized we sucked. I won’t lie. Some of my songs are definitely hit or miss. But I’m not writing for every song to be a hit. I’m just writing to get these songs out of my head."