Has anyone ever remixed one of your songs and made you go, "Oh shit! That's a better way of doing it."
Umm... yeah, I mean, I appreciate all the remixes that we've released. I wouldn't say they're better, they're just different. Once you make something you're obviously proud of it, but it's not something you're attached to -- it's just something you made.
Do you play the remix versions live now?
No, we DJ them. We'll play our songs live and DJ remixes of our songs.
Is that a new thing for you getting into the DJ world?
Yeah, it is. It's an interesting change. It's really eye-opening to start DJing and hear what a DJ would actually need from a song. It's neat to think about. There's a whole world of music that was going on while I was paying attention to other things. It's nice to go back and revisit all that stuff. I've always been friends with Chuck Daniels, who is a house guy from Detroit, and I've actually have known him since I was a kid, but I didn't really know his music that well until recently. And he did a remix for us and it was great.
Is there something happening in the Detroit music scene? It's definitely been an epicenter in the past -- do you feel you're a part of modern Detroit music renaissance?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting things going on in Detroit. The scene is a little bit insular -- a local show might out draw a big touring act. And really DIY venues and lot of that stuff going on. But I think it's just inspiring... to me, you know, to come home and see people doing stuff that inspires you. I'm really excited about it.
Do you have any aspirations to leave Detroit or is that home for a long time?
Oh yeah, I don't think that we're going anywhere anytime soon. Both of us bought houses -- it's really cheap to buy a house here. At this point it would be so crazy to pay $2,500 a month in rent in New York and then be gone for a month to tour -- that would make me so mad.
I hear you. Are you feeling good about the future of Detroit?
Yeah, I think a lot of people are. There's a lot of empty space here [Laughs] and a lot of people can do if they want to do it. People are coming up with really creative ideas and creative businesses. It's exciting; it's a good time to be here.

Are you working with any other bands or is Dale Jr. Jr. your sole focus?
It's really hard for me to do anything without giving it my all. So, there's just not enough time for anything else right now. I think for me right now, it's more exciting to be writing with Daniel than to be writing or doing anything with anybody else. I'm really excited to be doing this right now.
Let's talk about the live show -- how do you make it a show and not just make it sound like you're playing your album over a PA?
I think it's disrespectful to the audience to not make the show about them. You're not going to make everyone happy, but you at least have to make it memorable. You have to make people remember the show...
Along those lines, why do you feel that 1980's Steve Winwood tunes are so superior to his other work and why do you think the rest of the world doesn't realize that?
[Laughs] I don't know. He just had this period in the 80s where he churned out the number one hits. "Higher Love" is such a good song when you sit down, break it down and try to learn it. It's really a complicated song. It's really good. You could say he was at his peak there...
Good. It's an argument I like to throw out, but nobody wants to believe me anytime. I think it's that Eric Clapton is some big guy that people should pay attention to or something.
Yeah, and Traffic is underrated.
[Laughs] When you're doing your DJ sets, other than your own tunes, what are you throwing in there?
I've been spending a lot of time investigating a lot of house music. I think I like disco house... I was hanging with Chuck Daniels the other day and I was telling him the stuff that I like and he was like, "Nah man, that's not house." But it's listed as house [Laughs]. And you know, people who are involved with that, you know, that have all these different sub-genres that I haven't figured out exactly what they all mean yet -- I'm just trying to figure out that whole world.
You have a lot of sound going on in your songs, so when you're playing them live with just the two of you and a drummer -- you can't play everything, so do you mess around a lot with what parts are going to be performed live and what are going to be tracked underneath?
Yeah, we sequence some stuff, I have a sampler that I use for some stuff, some of the stuff the drummer triggers... so yeah, for the most part, we listen to the song and figure out what the most important parts are and we play those parts live.