The dichotomy of fun and sadness with Robbie Pankow

Robbie:
yeah, ghost is a different level from the other tracks but it has heart and emotion and i relate to it. one of my favorites honestly. and i can't think of anything that should be left [off the album]. I feel like they all fit as kind of a piece almost. which is why I love 'heartbreaks and milkshakes' as a title. your music, on the surface, is really upbeat and fun. sometimes silly, always enjoyable. but there is an undercurrent of sadness or, for lack of better word, heartbreak. that, for me, keeps it from just being fun dance music but helps me relate and keeps me emotionally invested.

Me:
Its funny you say this because today I was thinking of the songs as one unified body of work and how there is an unintentional tone of sadness. the upbeat, over-the-top, feel to our music starts to come off as insecurity.

Robbie:
which is what I love. that is something i can relate to. jokiness and false happiness out of sadness and insecurity. i can see through it in the same way i can see through myself. its very real and very beautiful in that way. i played my co worker Hot Damn the other day and he said it sounds like Danny is talking about girls in general and you sound like you are describing someone specific. there is a certain sadness in your voice at times that means something to me. which is why i think Ghost works perfectly as the end to your album. its the hangover, the morning after, the admission to the sadness that is underlying in the rest of the songs.

Me:
wow. that's an amazingly beautiful way to look at it. and amazingly on point. I realized at the video-shoot (when ------- and I started hanging out again) that every word in Hot Damn is about him. and the 'ghost' in ghost is him as well, and i literally wrote and recorded it all in one day after waking up beyond hungover and lonely. Hm...that's almost embarrassing.

Robbie:
and i can see that. I don't know much of you and ------- but i assumed and gathered that. and you said something on Facebook around Christmas about music being current and doing things the moment you feel them and that struck me. there is fun and there is sadness and that is how i feel about your songs. they strike me as very human. that's what i like about it. the dichotomy of fun and sadness. much in the way, a few months ago i went through a breakup and followed it up by drinking out of hand and having the most fun i could muster but people who knew me could see through it. that's how i feel about 'MILK". It sounds, on the surface, like a song about casual sex. but there is a longing and desperation in there that I really connect with. Its great. I applaud you.

-jason