Me personally, I side more with punk rock bands. I grew up with The Misfits, The Dead Boys, The Damned, Dropkick Murphys, and early AFI. That was the stuff that really got me into music. Song writing wise, bands like Alkaline Trio were very important to me for beginning to write songs.

Life is all about being true to yourself and what you believe in

I encourage all of you to find strength within yourself, no matter what. Be proud of who you are and never let anyone or anything take that away from you. Inner Strength is something that we are all born with. However, I've learned that it requires patience and perseverance to fully achieve it. I promise you, though, that as long as you know in your heart who you are and what you want from this world, nothing is gonna stop you.

Creating art or something beautiful makes you a more fulfilled person than they can ever be because they're caught up in what they hate rather than what they love.

I make more time to have fun in the life I'm living before I'm worm food.

You try so hard to make something that's fun and exciting, then all anyone wants to talk about is how no-one likes you. It gets very grinding. I had to let the chip I have on my shoulder about that go.

I don't want to paint myself as some villain - I was never a bad guy doing horrible things, but I got too caught up in wanting a very specific thing to happen to the band. Ultimately, I had to find the ability in myself to get over that and stop being so stringent and learn to laugh a little bit more.