Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.
A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It’s an individual-feel thing, you know?
There are times when I feel like I’m a traveling minister. I’m trying to go out and get kids to pick-up yard sale instruments and change the world.
No one has any faith in the tape anymore – everyone just relies on computers and considers the hardrive to be the safest option, and I don’t. I think an analog tape is something you can hold.
Always have the highest bar for yourself.
The most important thing is that you honor that musical integrity, whether you make music that sounds like ABBA or you make music that sounds like Void.
I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‘I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,’ and I actually meant it.
The best time for gum is just before getting onstage. I need a minty-fresh microphone.
I’m big on taking the lady out to dinner. We have some candlelight romance every now and then. And our whole family is within a 6-mile radius. It’s disgustingly domestic. I’m big on Costco.
How come drummers leave their drumsticks on the dashboard of their car? So they can park in the handicapped spaces.
It’s good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that’s better than you’d imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn’t be as much fun.
I once received a cape that was made from the little purple bags that Crown Royal Whisky comes in.
Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?
Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn’t a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn’t want to have some contrived composition.
Actually, I didn’t start sweating until I had children.
I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.
CBGB represents a lot to New York City and to underground rock and to new wave and post-punk and whatever. But, you know, it’s like tearing down the Jefferson Memorial or something.
You will only be great at things you love to do don’t pursue a career in something you hate to do.
I love everything about my job, except being away from the kids.
I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.