We've turned into a whining society.

I don't like that the government is going to manipulate the information to try to convince me that what I'm eating is not what I'm really eating. If people choose to eat cardboard because it's ten cents cheaper, then let them. That's at the root of freedom. But in the reverse, I'd like to know if what I'm eating or consuming or buying is somehow hurting or exploiting someone in another part of the planet.

In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me.

The music is all we care about -- so if that's bad, then we're bad.

Actually, I was having dinner with Michael [Stipe, of R.E.M.] when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that.

I feel completely free to do whatever I want and how I want to do it. I feel unburdened by my past.

I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life playing clubs, if that means I'm playing music that I believe in.