Dead Leaves Rising was basically the project that was born from the ashes of my first project Fade, and one which I spent over five years of my life working on. Musically, DLR showed a complexity and an aggression that was absent in all of the Fade material. The acoustic guitar was still the basis for all the songs, but I began to really appreciate what you could do in the studio, inspiring me to experiment with layered guitars and other instruments. Vocally, I hadn't really found my range, which means I tended to strive for notes well below what...