Josh: You're from St. Louis, how is St. Louis these days for music?

Scott: Well, honestly, I haven't really been home much in the past two years. I went to school in Nashville, so I wasn't really home very much. I played there a couple times though, it seems all right. It seems like the scene's dying there though. There aren't a lot of places these days.

Josh: We can start this as kind of a story, but basically, you made a song called "Whispers of a Long Goodnight" and that turned into a deal with the Militia Group and your first full length.

Scott: I just started with that song, and I guess just the right people heard it. I got extremely lucky I guess. (laughs) That's how it happened. I'm very fortunate to be doing what I am.

Josh: You're admittedly a one-person project, in the sense that you write everything yourself, in essence you are the Lyndsay Diaries, right?

Scott: Yeah, I guess that's safe to say. I write all of the songs. But I just have people come out to help me out on different tours to play. They're part of the Lyndsay Diaries too, but I'm usually the only full time person in the band, if you could call it that.

Josh: My favorite way to describe the music, just on a broad level, is that it's a more full sound than the acoustic guitar/vocals of Dashboard Confessional and less of a band sound than Ben Kweller.

Scott: I'd say that's pretty accurate.

Josh: I just wanted to make sure.

Scott: I have a hard time describing my music. People always ask me. I guess it's just "singer/song writer".

Josh: It changes from song to song.

Scott: Right.

Josh: So you have a new CD out in three days called "the Tops of Trees Are On Fire", the first thing I want to say about it is kind of silly but the Beautiful Mistake got match books to go with their new CD, are you going to be giving out promotional trees on fire or something?

Scott: No. they were actually going to make matches for mine, but no stores will take them because they'll be liable if some kid uses them to go burn a house down. And we can't pass them out anywhere. So we're not doing anything fire related for the promotion of the record. It's more just postcards, posters and stuff like that.

Josh: Why is it all fire related now too?

Scott: I don't know. We both kind of like, our albums just kind of came at the same time and from the same place. It's was just really a coincidence, I guess.

Josh: It seems that lyrically, your music stands out because they just seem more down to earth and written by actual people. And I know a lot of people in bands will say that "kids relate to my music because the lyrics are so real", but you know certain people just go in there thinking something would sound cool. It's just like the line "This is as real as it gets".

Scott: I'm glad you said that because I definitely try and write lyrics that are honest and real. When I write songs I try so hard not to write... I write for myself, you know. I try not to think "Oh, someone might like this better if I wrote it this way". But, yeah, I know what you're saying. Of course every band says that. But I'm sure every band has some sort of thought to their songs.

(Nick of the All-American Rejects says something, but I can't make out what. He then says "Sorry to interrupt", to which Scott says "You should be sorry" and I call him an asshole. Then Scott tells Nick to put on a shirt that fits him and Nick leaves as I tell him he's embarrassing the band)

Josh: Does it ever become tough for you to go stand up there and sing such personal songs? Sometimes there are people behind you, but sometimes there aren't.

Scott: I'm definitely terrified. Having people play with me has made it a lot easier. I can't hide behind a lot of distortion or heavy drums, so it's very quiet sometimes.

Clair: You have a really good stage presence though.

Scott: Thanks. I appreciate that.

Josh: Do you think that handling everything yourself musically and lyrically benefits you more lyrically because there's no one in your band to say something like "You're really going to say that?" about something you may write in one of your songs?

Scott: That's good and bad. It's nice to just be able to do what I want, but sometimes I'll write about something and people will just come up to me and be like, "Why did you write this?". I definitely like having my freedom of writing and not having to ask anybody. It's nice.

Josh: What do you think of the idea of the Militia Group being the new Drive Thru and you being the new Dashboard?

Scott: I've heard a lot of people talking about that. I definitely think Militia has potential to become one and the up and coming labels. Drive Thru just seems to sign quantity over quality. Militia Group doesn't sign tons of bands at one time. They just sign one band, then wait around forever to sign another one. I think that's what makes their label work more. I think they're smart. I talk to Chad about how people send demos in all the time that sound like the Lyndsay Diaries or Rufio, and Chad's just like, "Why would we want a band that sounds like this? We already have a Lyndsay Diaries". So whenever he sees that, he's like, "No, we don't want another one, we want something different". But I definitely think they have the potential to grow big. They're doing well right now.

Josh: Would it be fair to say that the new record, "the Tops of Trees Are on Fire", is a bit more darker than some of your earlier stuff?

Scott: Yeah, I think that's definitely fair to say. A lot of my music isn't really upbeat, it's usually softer anyway. But this record is definitely darker. There are definitely a few songs on the old record that could be dark. It was just kind of a lot of the things I was going through at the time. I was actually kind of worried about that when I was recording and there was one song I wasn't even sure if I should put on there.

Josh: Which one?

Scott: "Illustrations of Melbourne", it's about a girl killing herself. I had a good friend of mine take her life, that's what it's about. It's really up front and not subtle at all, so I was kind of worried, but the producer was like, go with it, and he liked it, so...

Josh: This is the part where I take a song title of yours and incorporate it into one of my theories.

Scott: (laughs) Ok.

Josh: You have a song called "the 20th Year". Do you think it's probably one of the hardest years to go through just because you don't fit in because you're post that high school/18 and under crowd, but not old enough to be in the 21 and over crowd? Whether or not you drink, I still think it effects you in some way.

Scott: Yeah, I'd say that's a perfect description of that title. That's why I wrote that. Good theory. I just turned 21 a couple of months ago, so I'm out of it.

Josh: Your name is pretty dark too though, the Lyndsay Diaries. Just like, the perfect image of someone but they really have the most problems. It just seems like whoever has the most together has it together the least.

Scott: Yeah, that's how it is so often. That's one reason I called it, but for myself because this is how I get my darker side out too. They read the lyrics and they're like, "what? where is this coming from". So it goes both ways.

Josh: The people who seem most like they have it together though...

Scott: Never do.

Josh: You have one line in your song that's like, "we all turn to God when"-

Scott: Oh, "we all love God when things are right, but the fact of the matter is that they never are".

Josh: Yeah. Is that kind of the opposite of someone who never goes to church but starts to pray when he's ten seconds away from dying?

Scott: I wrote that when I was like, pretty hopeless. A lot of the time, things will be going great and you'll be like, "Oh, thanks, God", but when you hurt rock bottom, it's just like, screw God or whatever... It's not like I totally feel that way, but it was just one of those times when everything was hopeless. It's not a very nice line, but... My mom actually asked me about that.

Josh: This question isn't mine, but about the song "Cowboy", if you don't want to be a cowboy anymore, why do you play the harmonica?

Scott: (laughs) I gotta go. (laughs)

Josh: Do you secretly wanna be a cowboy or something?

Scott: Basically, I'm saying that... I was living in Nashville and the whole country thing... It's not like I don't want to be a cowboy because I never really was a cowboy. It was a metaphor for everything I was going through there.

Josh: Do you remember that time I was interviewing Josh of the Beautiful Mistake and you came over the van and knocked on it?

Scott: Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Josh: Hey, that was my part.