“This song came from a soundcheck in Athens, Greece. I have this policy on tour where the band does their soundcheck, and then I come in. I don’t know what I’m going to play, but whatever I play, the band follows. We record what we do – sometimes it’s not very inspired, and other times you get something pretty nice.
“I remembered this soundcheck. We got about 15 seconds into the jam and these chords came out. I quickly explained to the band what to do because we didn’t have much time to play, but we ended up getting it down in one take. It sat on the shelf with about a hundred other soundchecks, but it was one of the ones I happened to go through. It moved me, I saw the potential in it, so I brushed it off, put the sound effects on it, put the vocals down and tweaked the guitar solo.
“It was released as a VaiTunes, but there was something very special to me about the track, and I didn’t want it to live in the digital-only world, so I remixed it and it became what it is.
“It’s a very personal song, actually. We go through a lot of emotional changes in life, and when I was a young man, between the ages of 20 and 22, I went through some real dark periods, a deep, deep kind of depression. I don’t even know why it happened. I wasn’t taking drugs, I had a great job, but you know, that stuff doesn’t matter.
“It got really bad, to the point where I was suicidal. I hit a real low one night, and right at the last moment, I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to solve anything; in fact, it was only going to make things much, much worse. And I was thinking to myself, Who’s telling me that? It was my first glimpse into the realization that there was more to life than just our identity.
“It was a miraculous moment, because from there my whole perspective started to change slowly, and I started to find some emotional equilibrium. After a year or so, I started to feel really good, and I’ve only been getting better and better and better. I’ve never ever gone back there.
“During those dark, low periods, I would have these dreams in which I was free of all that emotional chaos. I would see things that were very pleasing and beautiful… these landscapes of planets and stars. They were ethereal and colorful and profoundly beautiful. During these dreams, I was floating and surfing in the cosmos in a state of complete freedom. I wrote the lyrics to The Moon And I based on how I was feeling during those moments of euphoria and bliss.”