"I WAS picturing a car driving across San Francisco; it was heading towards a bridge clouded in fog and gradually it just dissolves into the mist," says Adam Granduciel, the frontman and founder of US rock group The War On Drugs.
He's explaining the inspiration for the band's psychedelic ballad Thinking Of A Place, which stretches over eleven minutes and is included in their upcoming album, A Deeper Understanding.
The song, released in April, was their first piece of music since 2014's breakthrough Lost In The Dream. Prior to that, The War On Drugs were a medium-sized indie rock band with two decent albums to their name.
The commercial success of their third effort took everyone, including Granduciel, by surprise. He initially formed the band with Kurt Vile in 2005 before the latter opted to pursue a solo career.
Named 'record of the year' by dozens of music critics, Lost In The Dream's hazy, Americana melancholy alongside Granduciel's soul-baring lyrics provided more accessibility than its predecessors.
An arduous two years of touring followed its release before the recording studio beckoned once again. And of course with success comes a noisier fan base and greater expectations. Add in a move away from independent label Secretly Canadian to Atlantic Records and the pressure might have felt a little heavy for some musicians.
That wasn't the case for Granduciel, as any stress came packaged as excitement.
"There were times when I felt a lot of pressure to make something that was different," the 38-year-old says down the phone from New York.
"But I found it exciting because whatever we were going to make was going to have a wider net."
Despite the move to Atlantic, A Deeper Understanding is free of big record company compromises. It's initial unveiling came in the form of the indulgent Thinking Of A Place which is peppered with guitar solos laid over a two-chord strum.
It was the aforementioned vision of a car in San Francisco plus the two chords on a synth which initially planted the song's seed.
Elsewhere, the record's dominated by tracks stretched over six minutes, but Granduciel says it's not a matter of wearing protraction as a badge of honour.
"It wasn't like I wanted super long songs but I wanted songs to feel loose, I wanted there to be more spontaneity," he adds.
"I like to think this record will be the longest record I make because there are times when you have so many ideas and you could condense a song if you wanted to, but you're like, 'I have this idea for the third and fourth verse to be these long tape loops and then I want something else to come in' and then you realise it's six and a half minutes long."
His willingness to evolve also meant a shift towards a more collaborative approach to writing and recording. While bassist Dave Hartley once described the band as a "totalitarian regime" led by Granduciel, the frontman says that changed on the new record.
"There's a misconception I can be isolated and I don't want any input but I like sharing ideas and I like hearing what other people think. Dave got used to saying that without really thinking about what it means but this record was certainly more collaborative because we've developed into more of a live entity."
"We toured so much that I wanted to have the band around for writing and recording this one," he continues.
"I didn't want to just do it the old way which was go into the studio and I'd play the drums. I definitely wanted it to be something which it hadn't been before."
The move to Atlantic also made a difference, he adds. Steve Ralbovsky, a veteran executive who is serving as their A&R (artists and repertoire), helped, says Granduciel.
"He open up my view a little wider and offered interesting perspectives but without forcing my hand."
There have been changes in his personal life too. Lost In The Dream was heavily influenced by depression, paranoia and anxiety which engulfed Granduciel after two years of touring and the end of a relationship.
He remembers the clouds lifting a little when the band went back on the road and, upon the tour's completion, decided to leave his home of 13 years in Philadelphia to move to Los Angeles with actress girlfriend Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad, Jessica Jones).
"I knew I didn't want to creep back into thinking about things too much and not being proactive with music and writing," he explains.
"I was afraid if I'd gone on tour for two years and went right back to Philly and living in the same house then I'd be doing the same thing so it was the perfect time to make a fresh start and to change my life."
The move also forced the band to work in long, expansive sessions because they were flying into LA from the other side of the country. It offered them a chance for more experimentation and Granduciel speaks of 12-hour jam sessions which would go on for seven or eight days.
Granduciel admits his own personal struggles have been slightly reframed by the recent suicides of Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell and Linkin Park's Chester Bennington.
"Cornell was my f*****g hero when I was a kid – I was a Soundgarden kid," he says.
"They were my favourite band. It gets to a point where he (Cornell) has achieved so much and maybe to him so little.
"It's so sad for both of them because they were obviously in a pain that so many people experience and sometimes it feels there's no way out."
He explains how the process of creating Lost In The Dream allowed him to confront his own emotions, and adds "the more people I spoke about it to the more people opened up themselves".
Touring also came to the rescue in the sense of connecting with a lot of people, he says. And the desire to get back out on the road with A Deeper Understanding is enticing him each day.
The band will arrive in Glasgow in November for the first of six British shows, including their largest to date at the 10,000 capacity Alexandra Palace in north London.
Granduciel is already looking forward to this: "I remember the last cycle we played two shows in Brixton and that was the moment when I thought ''this is new level of awesome'," he says excitedly.
"The history of music in London and the UK is so special to me and everyone in the band and we've always had a really great time."
:: A Deeper Understanding is out on Atlantic Records from August 25.
