And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.
I mean, I never liked being told what to do. It’s one of the reasons I dropped out of school.
I’m so not macho. It’s crazy. My man cave is so not a man cave.
My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.
I dropped out of high school and I couldn’t go to college ’cause I wasn’t smart enough, so I’d resigned myself to loading trucks and playing punk rock on the weekends.
Some people record onto tape, and then they pay for the tape, and download those onto a hard drive. Initially in a Pro Tools program. Other people go straight into digital, and use no tape at all.
The most important thing for me is my family, and my health and happiness, and making sure everyone’s cool.
Usually, when you go in to make a record, you have 30 songs, and you record 30 of them, and 12 of them make it to the record.
It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.
Mick Fleetwood was one of my first interviews. And if you’ve ever talked to that dude, he’s the sweetest guy in the world – he’s just a trip.
Ladies and gentlemen, god bless America – land of the free, home of the brave.
When you have kids, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and are maybe a little more compassionate. It’s inevitable that that would make its way into your songwriting.
There weren’t a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn’t have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends.
I never needed much, and I never thought I’d get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.
I mean, I never liked being told what to do. It’s one of the reasons I dropped out of school. Give me something to assemble, I won’t look at the directions, I’ll try to figure it out by myself. It’s why I love Ikea furniture.
What I really miss these days in music – is the music. I prefer to listen to melodies and songs, not just sounds.
My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn’t have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family.
When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?
I’ve always been a fan of melody and emotional melancholy, whether it was Rites of Spring or Tears for Fears or Neil Young. If I hear a song that has a sweet melody, I’m a sucker for it, whether it’s Linkin Park or Little Richard.
Dude, maybe not everyone loves ‘Glee.’ Me included. I watched 10 minutes and it wasn’t my thing.