“It’s one of those things where you have to embrace your identity and your tendencies.”

Jesse Hasek joined Loudwire Nights on Thursday to celebrate the recent release of the new version of 10 Years‘ “The Optimist,” featuring Kia Taylor of Conquer Divide, and got into a conversation about why he continues to challenge himself and the band.

“We’re going to sound like 10 Years,” he explained to host Chuck Armstrong, “but we really try not to kind of rip ourselves off and just fall into a pattern of creating the same album over and over again.”

As Hasek put it, he and his bandmates are all fans of different types of music, so they want that to influence each new album they make.

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“We’d like to trickle that into where we’re at with ourselves in life,” he said.

“From album to album, when people are going through our catalog, it’s just different colors and emotions and different periods. We try to do that and that’s also what takes so long. Sometimes we’ll come up with some lyrics and come up with some melodies and go, ‘Oh, never mind, I already did that.’ It’s tricky.”

What Else Did 10 Years’ Jesse Hasek Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• What fans can expect from 10 Years’ upcoming EP, Inner Darkness, and what it’s like releasing a studio EP for the first time in the band’s career
• How he protects the band’s goal of always challenging themselves album to album
• What fans can expect from 10 Years’ support of Theory of a Deadman on their Unplugged tour

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

Jesse Hasek joined Loudwire Nights on Thursday, Oct. 3; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.