I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them.

I've learned that I shouldn't shrink from success. Though honestly I thought they'd be knocking on my door years ago.

I love everybody. You have to embrace all facets of humanity; love and accept everyone as being part of yourself.

As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about.

I always want to do something that just sort of fits the mood. It's supposed to help the song, it's not supposed to take away from the song or re-contextualize it. I always feel like the less you make it a conceptual territorial debut, the better.

I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school and every year I participated in the talent shows and the school plays, all of 'em.

The first half of high school, I had a girlfriend, and then the second half I got to know these guys who would just get stoned and jam. I had struck the goth thing by then, but I still thought of myself as Ian Curtis or something.