Creativity Quote by Dan Hawkins

There is a whole coming-of-age arc packed into Hawkins' offhand timing confession. "Nervous energy" is the tell: the early-band adrenaline of wanting to prove you belong on the stage at all. Playing "everything twice as fast" isn't just a technical detail; it's a psychological one. Speed becomes camouflage. If you never slow down, you never have to sit in the silence long enough to risk being ordinary, or worse, exposed.

The line also quietly punctures a romantic myth about rock: that intensity automatically equals authenticity. Hawkins implies the opposite. Early intensity can be pure cortisol, a jittery overcompensation that reads as "punk" or "raw" from the crowd but feels, inside the band, like survival mode. The subtext is competence earned over time: the moment you can trust your songs enough to let them breathe, you stop sprinting through them like you're trying to outrun judgment.

Culturally, it tracks with how successful bands mature in public. The debut era rewards velocity - tighter setlists, faster tempos, maximal impact. Later, audiences begin to value groove, dynamics, and the confidence to leave space. Saying "as we do now" frames slowdown as growth, not decline: less panic, more control. It's an artist admitting that what looked like swagger was often anxiety, and that real power, eventually, is the ability to set the pace rather than be chased by it.