Citizen Beck

But you know, I still want to be creative and push myself. I still want to be in the danger zone, not be sure who I am. I’m not interested whatsoever in a comfort zone.

How do you get to that place when you don’t have financial risk, when it’s not make or break?

Well, it’s still always a bit of a gamble. I don’t like to talk about that end too much, because it’s not why I made music. I mean, I could probably get by for a couple years, but I’m not like, set, you know?

Well, how do you stay in the danger zone. Is it just by pushing?

For me, it’s just where I gravitate, whether that’s doing a record like Sea Change, which was different from what I’d done before, or . . . every record is just a gamble. It costs money to make these records. [Laughs.]

Does each of your songs have its own intention for you, or do think in terms of albums and the songs being a part of that intention?

Well, Sea Change definitely had its own thing, front to back. That was an exception, I think. But I think on this new record, The Information, there was a sense of pending dread, of the unknown creeping in.

Where is that coming from?

I look at it as what happens when everything gets quiet . . . when you shut it all off and you don’t hear the city and you don’t hear the noise. What happens then? God forbid there’s a dead spot, because that’s when something else comes in . . . I like to remind myself that it’s there — at least be conscious of it.