Matt Costa's toured with a who's who of the music industry. From Jack Johnson to Oasis, Ryan Adams to Modest Mouse, Costa's shared the biggest stages with all of them. His tracks have appeared in movies like I Love You, Man and Youth in Revolt. By all measures, the Huntington Beach songwriter's career has been as successful as anyone could possibly ask for.

So now he's doing something totally different and self-releasing five EPs instead of going back to a label for a proper followup to his 2013 self-titled album.

With the Eucalyptus, Cat Mosta, and Neon Brain EPs now in the rearview mirror, Costa just released Live in London for the penultimate addition to the line. Each one carries a vastly different sound than those before them, which seems to be exactly the point to what Costa is doing.

Myspace caught up with Costa as he was putting the finishing touches on the fourth EP of his year-long series to talk about the process of releasing EP after EP and where he gets his inspiration from.

For the obvious question, why release a series of EPs instead of an album?

I felt I could get more cohesion between the songs if they were released in smaller batches. Some are drastically different than others, and it can be really overwhelming to make big bodies of work cohesive. I wanted to leave it open if something happened while making the EPs to include it in a later one and make that part of the creative process. I also wanted to creatively build up momentum for myself and keep rolling with these EPs. I've only done big records every two or three years, versus doing these independently where I can continue to create something new all the time.

What differences have you seen putting out the EPs compared to releasing a full-length record?

Well I have to put together a plan for everything myself, which is something the record label usually does. I have to think ahead to what I now want to do next every time I finish one EP. The fourth EP is all new songs, but they're live recordings from when I was in London. I've never done that before. I also started a radio show and a record label for myself and a few friends, they're both called Colored Glass.

So over the course of about a year, you'll have released five EPs, started your own radio show and now run a record label, how do you balance all of your time? 

It really balances itself. Creativity is like a pet. If you don't feed it, it'll go somewhere else to feed itself. It's less of a balancing and more of a necessity.

How would you explain the differences in your EPs up to this point?

The first one, Eucalyptus, was mostly instrumental finger-picking songs. I thought of watercolor paintings, how they're a very subtle and delicate medium. It's the same as an acoustic guitar with folk picking. It sounds and looks beautiful, but it tends to be done on a smaller scale. I thought it was a nice place to debut it on the first EP.

The second was more like bedroom rock or garage rock. It's how I often demo songs, and I wanted to show people what it sounds like. A lot of them are the first tracks I laid down for each song. The third one is like letting the pot stew as I see it. There are a lot of textures in it, and it's really based mostly on paintings.

What makes you draw inspiration from paintings for your songs?

Sometimes it's as simple as looking at a painting and writing the stream of consciousness as it comes up. It gets the creativity flowing. When the music starts to click with me, I see images in my head. So when I start with an image in my head, I'm that much closer.

You've played with so many big names, what are your goals for the future when it comes to tour partners?sAs far as aspirations and goals go, the people I've played and toured with has exceeded my expectations and goals by so much. The artists I grew up with coming out of my speakers seemed so far away, but now I've played with many of them. I'm just taking it as it comes.

Since you're just wrapping up the fourth EP, do you have any idea what the fifth EP will entail?

I've been working on the soundtrack and scoring of a documentary called Orange Sunshine, so I think the fifth one will be a collection of the songs I'm working on for that. It's premiering at SXSW, so it's pretty exciting.