Tatone: The other song was the closing track, "Sympathy." It felt really bluesy and soulful and almost spiritual. Could you talk about it?

Tucker: That song evolved as this really bluesy number. When we wrote the music for it, it was like a different thing. I'm stuck outside myself and singing in this really bluesy, gutsy way. When I started singing, it really connected on a personal level for me. I guess it's about spirituality, about being thankful for the things that are most important for you. It stems from my experience having my son, having it not be an easy thing at all — it was definitely a difficult time. But just being so thankful that he's a healthy guy and that my family is strong and together.... I think it's easy to take that for granted. It's something that — all of a sudden there was a moment for me when I pictured losing the thing that is most important to me, and that was a very scary, scary thing.

Tatone: Did something happen?

Tucker: My son was born nine weeks premature, really early. The song is about the night he was born. He went into the prenatal intensive care unit at a serious level cause he was so early. It was really scary. Fortunately he was perfectly fine; he didn't need a respirator at all.

Tatone: How long until he could come home?

Tucker: He was in the hospital for a couple weeks and they had him in an incubator; he had to be monitored.

Tatone: So he's totally healthy now?

Tucker: Yeah.

Tatone: That's good.

Tucker: Yeah, it's very good.

Tatone: Five years ago when you were interviewed for Addicted To Noise and asked where you see yourself in 10 years, you said it was too difficult to look at the band from a timeline perspective 'cause you can't do that to determine the longevity of the band. Do you still feel that way? Or has that changed at all? Do you think more about the future now?

Weiss: What did we say? Is that what we said? Like 10 years from now, or are we just at five years from now, now?

Tatone: Just thinking long-term in general. Some people just think day-to-day.

Weiss: This profession prevents you from thinking too much in the future. It is a pretty in-the-moment or three-months-ahead kind of endeavor. I think [there's an] art of not taking it for granted, not assuming it's gonna be there in a year or two years. It's not a job like that. You have to really appreciate it now; make the most of it now and then see what happens later.

Tatone: So, where would you like to see yourself? Any hopes?

Weiss: I'd like to have a dog by then.

Brownstein: Happy. We all want to be happy.

Weiss: I'd like to see us still friends, still hanging out.

Tucker: Filthy rich, souped-up cars, lots of girls.

Weiss: You know that's gonna be the pullquote: "Sleater-Kinney: cars, girls and lots of money." No, we're being facetious.

Tatone: Is doing media and interviews and whatnot one of the hardest parts about being in a band?

Tucker: No, it's not the hardest part unless you don't have that buffer between yourself and the media, unless you're naïve about it. It's not the most important thing — it's part of the job. Promoting a record is part of the job. If you think about it in that way, you'll be OK.

Brownstein: I feel like after we took a break and came back you really see it as, this is work. We're working right now. We didn't work for a year and now we're working. Writing is working. Recording is working. Press is working. Touring is working. It's all part of the job. There's a million parts of it that are amazing and fun and so much better than working a nine-to-five job. We feel lucky for that but, certainly, this just is part of it.

Weiss: If you make something that you're really proud of, it's easier, 'cause you do want people to hear it, and that's why we do press. We wanna keep making records, and part of doing that entails doing press now, getting music to a place where people can actually find out about it.

Brownstein: And word of mouth. If you make a bad record, someone buys it [and] one of your friends says it's not that great — that has a big effect on me. If my friends tell me they don't like someone's record, I sometimes don't go out and get it. At the end of the day, no matter how much press you did, someone has to go home and like your record for other people to buy it.

Weiss: Word of mouth is the best.

Brownstein: You want people to be like, "Their new record is great!" It's totally up to the individual and how it affects them. So, I don't think we take for granted that relationship between the listener and the music. We can't count on what we've already done to sell records; that's a bad way to go into it.