When speaking with Michael James, one of the guitarists for Explosions in the Sky, you quickly discover that two things are at the forefront of his mind with respect to the band: time and communication. Sometimes things happen quickly and easily, like when you meet someone for the first time and you hit it off. Other times though, things evolve at a glacial pace.

For Brandi Carlile, being a musician isn’t about trying to be cool or popular, and making records isn’t an easy way for her to achieve massive fame and fortune without putting significant effort into her craft. For her, music goes much deeper than any of those things.

Sometimes all you can do is marvel at someone’s dumb luck, blessed fortune, or whatever you want to call it. Like the guy who wins the lottery because he picked one or two of the right numbers by mistake, the woman who hits the jackpot on her first pull on a slot machine after you spend three hours losing money on it, or the unknown actor who lands a highly coveted role in a film just because some producer happened to see him at the right place at the right time. Joy Williams is one half of the popular band The Civil Wars, and the story of how she came to be in the band — as well as that of bandmate John Paul White — is one of those stories.

"I can't tell you how many times I've gotten e-mails from people who were poor or on the verge of being suicidal or even killing somebody because of something that happened," Randolph says. "And these people came to a show and now they're like, 'Man, I just feel like I want to be a different person.'"

"I had been introduced to this phrase, 'The Golden Room,' which some psychic had said is a way you protect yourself against negative influence from other people," Satriani explains.

She punctuates the sentence with a laugh, which is a good sign considering all the problems the band has endured recently. She says their upcoming full-length record ("We're looking at releasing it in early spring, perhaps March") focuses on these struggles.

This, in a way, is emblematic of Millers approach to life because he always seems to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not that you can blame him exactly; after all, he once endured a break-up on his birthday, which happens to be on April Fools Day.

When I found out I was a regional finalist, I had one day to make a music video. All these people helped out: There were climbing videographers who were psyched about the shoot, and I got people to cover my shift at work, she says with a laugh. Everything just came together; it was crazy how it worked out so perfectly.

Music is like a combination of all the things in the world to me, he says. It has a physical challenge to it, it has a mental component, its spiritual and it has heart and emotion as well. Its one of the few things Ive encountered in the world that is an expression of all those things.

The laughter that follows is somewhere between mortified and embarrassed, but considering how things have been going for Potter since the release of her bands self-titled third album in June, this is not a misstep that will require years of therapy to get over.