I just find that with music I've always felt a sort of comfort."Paranoid Android" was the saddest song I'd ever heard in my life, but it felt so good - it was like, "Oh, you understand where I'm coming from." I was at a weird age at the time, in a hardcore band that had no melody, no chance of finding any success, and I was just trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. And that came out and changed my life forever - on an artistic level, and a lyrical level, for sure.

I've always found it pretty difficult to write a happy song. Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it's been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It's not really ever been my route.

You start treating your body right and your immune system is better.

I would say it's always been in me to want to have victorious songs. I sort of want my songs to have a feeling of victory, but through a lot of pain. Like, you're 75 percent to the top of the mountain and sometimes you fall back to the bottom, but hopefully by the end of the record you'll feel like there's no mountain at all.

Growing up from Nirvana to all the bands I was listening to at the teenage time, those were my best friends, more than my real friends. Those were the people that sang me to sleep or gave me the confidence I needed to go to first period. When we're all so insecure with weird stuff, when we're having weird feelings toward girls or guys, or whatever. It's the insecurity of life that we all go through. So music helped me.

Videos are tricky because stuff sounds amazing on paper and it seems like it's going to be this mystical experience and you're going to look back and go, "Wow, that was magic." But more times than not, it doesn't end up that way, so I never know what I'm going to get.

My first attempt at real music was when I was 13. My first signed band was when I was 21; that failed. I got another deal at 26; that failed, and then I was broke. I imagine trying to handle this head-trip of an experience when I was younger - it would have just turned into too much, probably.We all go through ups and downs with drinking, and In think it would have probably been a lot worse had I experienced that before.