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Back to the matter at hand, how is the first record holding up for you after all the accolades and touring?

I'm not getting tired of it. You can always come back to it if you feel strongly about it in the first place. It's lasting. It's working. We'll always be able to come back to the first one for a song in a set and ... it's not tiresome, you know? It seems to make itself work for whatever reason.

There are obviously a lot of different versions of the rock-and-roll fantasy, especially nowadays. It seems that CYHSY falls squarely into the scenario in which a young band makes a good record, releases it humbly and gets discovered right away -- not by an audience of millions perhaps, but by an ever-expanding cult of attentive and supportive true music fans. Does that square up with your expectations or fantasies at the time you made the record?

It's all been extraordinarily flattering. Everybody's been very enthusiastic. Everybody's been great ... I think that going through it initially, one can never expect something. It's impossible to gauge public opinion. All you can do is be as well-informed as you possibly can. I'm obsessed by listening to music and I glean ideas from everything. I listen to a lot of things every day. So the idea is to try to bring that into your head and then not go anywhere with it directly in terms of thinking about one particular album and spitting it out. The idea is to have it all come in together, and I think that's what's been happening, and maybe that's what people take to, because it sounds somewhat familiar, but it's the way any album shapes up that's worth its salt: it didn't come from nothing but a whole mish mash of things.

How has the experience of finding that audience changed your feelings about the decision to release the record yourselves?

I gotta say again, there was no expectation. Everything was instinctually done. Everything, including the album, relied upon the gut. And putting the album out, we had no idea that people would take to it as they did. It was starting to shape up with some of the shows we were playing in New York that there were a lot of people coming around before we even put the album out, so we had an idea that it would work, on a certain level perhaps, in New York. And that was as far as we could go with any sort of fantasy. And then when things started picking up even more, we had to sort of re-group and understand that we had something that might be sustainable ... I don't know how I came upon this group of people. It just so happened I had a team of people in the band who were able to do the nitty gritty, detailed aspects of the business end of things. It seemed to fashion itself out of nothing. Everybody just seemed to take their part. Everybody has their own job -- that's how it was when it started, more than right now, because we've had to go on tour, we've had to focus on that. But as far as putting the Web site together, Lee and Tyler are both good at that sort of thing; Robbie does the design work for the T-shirts and posters, his girlfriend does the artwork; Sean and I run the post office and all this stuff, and this is what we had to do, because we weren't even thinking about a label.

Do you feel beholden to the image you have been saddled with as DIY saints?

Uh, no, and I never did. And I've gotta say that becoming that sort of symbol for the music industry sort of fell upon us because we had no label when we released it and then things picked up quickly. We had to adjust. As far as that's concerned, it just happens to fit us. Some of these guys at the labels, even the major ones, they're not bad people. They're restructuring in a similar fashion. To me, it just has everything to do with what's right for the individual or the group. Everybody has to find their own personal way of going about things.

Given the fact that you've decided to keep the record on your own label, are labels still sniffing around?

It's still a young album, you know? It was released in June [2005]. I didn't want to be in any hurry to be on any label or to expose myself to the world and garner that type of attention. I'm a little uncomfortable about that, personally. As far as whether or not they're still coming around, I think we've made it clear that we're going to try to take it on ourselves, at least for this first one. But as far as the next and albums after, I don't know. Some [labels] have been somewhat affronted by not being considered or not being signed on to, and frankly, that's not my problem.

What's the nature of your discomfort with the attention that comes from being on a bigger label?

My personal discomfort comes from a sense of obligation and a sense of commitment to the idea of [not] becoming a politician of sorts. Already, it seems to me that what initially sparked interest [in the band] escapes certain parties. I think [major label] people are more interested in building you up as a character rather than coming back to the root of things. To me, the idea is to maintain that as much as possible at a certain level. As far as signing to a major label, I've gotta tell you that a lot of [my reluctance] had to do with personal concern with getting the kind of exposure and attention that's just not my style. I prefer to kind of be tucked away. I realize as well, and I've told people this, that maybe I chose the wrong business, but nevertheless, I feel like I have to do this. I'm compelled to do this. So, if I can find a balance ... which I think we're doing by letting [the record] move by itself, which is why we didn't want to sign to a label.

Does that mean that you don't respond to the personalities of the musicians you admire?

No, I don't. I mean, it has everything to do with the work they've done on their albums. In fact, I prefer to stay away from the personalities. I like to pretend to believe that the personalities that are portrayed on the albums are the musicians themselves, which is a myth ... it's like a stage actor. If he's great, it's like Marlon Brando becomes a certain character he plays. It's not necessarily Marlon Brando, but I prefer to believe that it is almost, because I like to preserve that sort of romance.

Is that why your lyrics aren't particularly identity or narrative driven?

The band doesn't seem too concerned with offering up a persona. That's the idea for me. A lot of people say they can't understand what I'm saying and things like that. To me, it's whether or not it conveys a certain feeling. It's an emotion. The whole album's supposed to be an emotion. You're supposed to see colors when you hear it. It's like Brian Eno's style of songwriting was to essentially let the lyrics just go, just let it move by itself, and then, you know, if something happens to be portrayed by the lyrics, it's sort of incidental. But he's made "Here Come the Warm Jets," "Another Green World," "Before and After Science" and "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)." All of those albums seem to carry a certain something, that certain ineffable feeling, and to me that's the way it is. I mean, unless you're trying to write "The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle" and you're doing a narrative and trying to tell certain stories. But I'm not trying to be Bruce Springsteen.

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