How did the collaboration with Sara Bareilles come about?
Sarah’s an old friend of mine. When I first got to L.A., I remember hearing her. I was driving my 1994 Toyota pickup along Sunset—where it gets all curvy going through the woods. I remember hearing this voice on the radio on the KCRW weekend show. The song finished, and the guy announced that it was a girl named Sara Bareilles from UCLA. I became aware of her then, and I kept an eye on her. I sent her an email, and I told her I thought she was amazing and that I hoped we played together at some point. A few years later, I started booking this venue called Room 5, which was on La Brea between Beverly and 1st Street. It was a tiny little upstairs bar, from an Italian restaurant. When I started booking there, I had Sarah come and play. We just become best friends, and then we both started playing the Hotel Café. We found ourselves playing on the same nights some times, so we started playing on each other’s stuff. We always had a nice connection. When we were making this record, we finishe
