But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.

I'm not really thinking about what I'm talking about or what I'm willing to achieve. I'm just kind of letting it come out, recording it.

You can spend time self-identifying and figuring out what you are on that, but at some point, you just want to be who you are and not walk around telling people.

I feel like there are a lot of people doing a lot of hard work. I think it's too early to judge, and I don't think the gay community is in any way falling short.

The only thing I have going on at a personal level is just the way I knew I was gay and I knew what that meant inside me, but the gender aspect of who I am came later.

The impossibility and hypocrisy of a situation where kids are expected to be honest but are judged and alienated from their community because of it should not escape us.

I have a lyric journal that I write in a lot. When I’m going to play, I just sit down and have my books with me and my notes and tapes and whatever I need to refer to. I just play and try different things. It’s a kind of discipline.