When you're in pain, you're genuinely very, very alive, and that's beautiful. Especially emotional pain.

For me, it's very childish to tour on a train. And I think that's a powerful quality, to inspire childishness.

What makes me deeply vulnerable? Probably the thing I suffer most from and have the most uncontrollable reactions from is still social anxiety.

I think the most important thing to remember is that pain passes. And artistically, the pain is going to pass. It's what you want to express out of the pain as opposed to indulging in the agony-and-pain mantra of songwriting that became such a hit in the '90s and still, all the way up to now.

Physical pain is problematic because it's very difficult to transcend that. Sometimes you're just in physical pain, and that's a bummer. Even then, there are beautiful things involved in the healing of that. I've experienced some.

I don't want an angry song with no silver lining ending up on my album. Then I'd have to play, or feel obliged to play, that song every night in repetition as a mantra of anger.

What gets me pretty pissed off is the whole Monsanto engineered foods issue.