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DG: So Neil, how did your wife Amanda (Palmer) rope you into this 8in8 project?

NG: Actually, it all happened in a wonderfully upside-down kind of way. Amanda and I are always going around doing different things, so every few months we sit down and go through our respective schedules. I told her I’d be in New York on April 27th to host NPR’s Selected Shorts program (where some of my short stories were to be read,) and she said, “Okay, if you’re going to be on the East coast, how about joining me for the Rethink Music conference – its two days before that!” And I told her, “Great! I’m in!”

DG: Did she posit the idea of the musical collaboration then?

NG: The project only took shape about a week prior to the conference, masterminded by the evil Ben Folds (laughter.) Amanda sent out an email saying if the four of us were all going to be there, we should get together and do something fun. Of course, she was thinking along the lines of a panel discussion and just mixing things up on stage – but then Ben suggested that since we were all arriving in Boston the day before, we should get together and do something like say, record eight songs in eight hours: “We’re all instrumentalists, we all sing (save for Neil) and since Neil’s the writer, we should make him the lyricist.” And that’s how the whole thing started.